


structural perfection and hostility

by reliquiaen



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alien AU, Gen, as in xenomorph, i'm not listing all the characters, they're in the notes, too hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 23:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13041777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reliquiaen/pseuds/reliquiaen
Summary: “Noted: First pilot, Wynonna Earp, has registered that capturing the alien creature encountered from Sevastopol Station is a ‘terrible idea’.”hi, here is your christmas alien au.anyone who knows me knows i'm a giant ass alien nerd and that every christmas i marathon the movies. so this should come as no surprise to you. here we have a selection of the cast vs an alien. the rating is just to be safe, it's not that graphic. it's technically gen but there's wayhaught here too jsyk.





	1. pandora's box

**Author's Note:**

> cast list for the curious: all three earp sisters, nicole, lucado, fish and levi, jonas, kiersten, beth and tucker gardener and perry. (some alive, some dead, and some who i wish weren't dead) oh and calamity jane, obvs
> 
> pls mind the pov changes, i wanted to keep it up in the air who dies (but i'm p weak so)
> 
> for those who want them, here are some relevant facts:  
> \- this is set between the events of the first two movies but before Isolation (bc, the Anesidora hasn't blown up yet, which happens on 11 December)  
> \- there is ONE discrepancy from the canon timeline: the Anesidora brings more than one alien to Sevastopol station  
> \- i made up the names of some of the planets/locations but they are all based on canon names (ie Zeta Major is in the Zeta Reticuli system)  
> \- the alien featured is from the expanded universe, based on Six from the avp game. this variant is "pure bred" and capable of cocooning to become a queen (the implication being that this one can then start a new hive wherever it ends up)  
> \- it's sort of never really discussed whether or not drone xenomorphs (first movie) are the only ones to make nests out of the mucus, but i figure they probably all have the ability, esp if they make cocoons for themselves to advance structurally. also it's just a nice bit of atmosphere  
> \- Matriarch continues a long running theme of naming AIs within the canon  
> \- i'm bored of aliens being killed by launching them into space  
> \- xenomorphs do have eyes, but like anyone wants to get close enough to find them  
> \- the ship names are themed after the alien canon too. Epimetheus is Prometheus' brother (u know who icarus is). make of it what you will  
> \- i nearly named the icarus 'peacemaker' but it felt too on the nose  
> \- i did not do a floorplan of the ship so just go with it  
> \- i also do not claim to know anything about how space ships work. the system Wynonna uses at the end is inspired by Mother's in the first movie although this one serves a different function  
> \- i really really wanted to give Waverly a flamethrower. that's why i wrote this fic. it's been two seasons Emily GIVE HER A FLAMETHROWER
> 
> and i think that's it. pls enjoy my love for alien

**December 2137**

 

“So let me get this straight.”

Nicole cracks her head against the underside of the holo-desk she’s fixing and doesn’t quite manage to bite off the laughter Waverly knows is reaction to Wynonna’s words. She backs out from under the desk rubbing at her head and Waverly presses a hand gently to the base of her skull, smile mimicking Nicole’s.

Wynonna huffs. “Alright, shut up. But for real. We get ejected from hypersleep early because we’re docking to pick up cargo even though the entire process is automated and we shouldn’t have had to open our eyes for another like… year at least?” She lifts her brows and fixes their captain with an incomprehensible look. “Can we just go lie back in our pods until we get to the outpost?”

Their captain, the ever unflappable Jane Lucado, studies Wynonna emotionlessly until she huffs and drops back into her seat. Wynonna props her elbow on the panel and grumbles something about how she’s not even needed because the ship is set to autopilot until they dock and then the ship’s on-board computer is meant to recalculate the second half of their journey so she doesn’t _technically_ need to be awake.

Waverly runs a hand through Nicole’s short hair and rolls her eyes at her sister.

“We’re awake because Matriarch released the systems,” Lucado says. “That’s all that matters. Perhaps she got a transmission from the supply station.”

“We have no incoming signals, captain,” Jonas pipes up from his spot on the other side of the bridge to Waverly. She can’t help but think it isn’t quite far enough away. “Sevastopol Station hasn’t attempted to contact us at all.” He makes a few adjustments to his screen. “I can try hailing them, ma’am?”

Lucado hesitates only a moment before nodding. “Yes. Let’s see if there’s any reason for Matriarch to have awoken us. Haught.” Nicole snaps upright and Waverly’s hand falls back to her lap. She has to suppress the urge to glare at their captain. “If you’re quite finished, I would like you to run a full diagnostics on the hypersleep chambers in case it was a malfunction. I won’t have those pods killing us in our sleep the next time we use them.”

“Yes, captain.” Nicole flashes Waverly one last smile before disappearing through the doors down towards the med bay.

Across the bridge Jonas patches through to the frequency that should connect them to their port. “Sevastopol Station,” he says. “This is the USCSS _Epimetheus_ , preparing for cargo collection. Is there an issue with the docks?”

There’s no response for a long time and Waverly checks her charts to make sure they’re where she thinks. If they’re too far off still it’s possible the Sevastopol just can’t receive their transmission, but no they’re well within range. She frowns and exchanges a glance with her sister over her co-pilot’s bowed head. She’s not sure what Ambrose is looking at on the charts but his face is pulled together in concentration too. It’s probably the diagnostic maps for docking with the station knowing him.

At last a reply filters through. “USCSS _Epimetheus_ ,” says a man’s voice. “We read you. We’ve had a few issues with cargo allocation,” he explains. “Nothing alarming but a few crates have been reassigned to your route.”

“We were roused from sleep,” Lucado puts in. “Is there a reason for this?”

Another pause. “We’re a little short-handed here at the present.” Static cuts across his next few words but Jonas is quick to adjust. “… a medical incident from another vessel and redistributing goods. You may have to have an engineer monitor the crane as it loads the cargo.”

Waverly watches Lucado’s face for the brief moment she’s quiet and wonders what she’s thinking. “Matriarch,” she eventually says. “Confirm instruction. We were roused to handle shipment transfer?”

A low beeping announces Matriarch’s calculations before she speaks. “ _Hypersleep chambers deactivated for reasons unknown_ ,” she states. “ _System check returns no programming_.”

Honestly, Waverly _hates_ mysteries and it burns in her chest that something isn’t right about this. The chambers don’t just deactivate for no reason. And if Matriarch didn’t have programming for it then it had to either be a transmission request from Sevastopol or entered manually. But if the ship had no record of either then…

Well it’s troubling for one. Waverly doesn’t appreciate in the least the way Lucado seems to brush it off.

“Seems fortuitous then,” she says. “Thank you Sevastopol Station.”

The man’s voice returns after a beat. “Dock two is cleared for you, cargo prepared for transfer.”

“Bring us in, Earp.”

Wynonna’s mouth sits in an unhappy line but she does as instructed. Red guiding lights blink to indicate the port for dock two. Waverly thinks it’s odd that even though the _Epimetheus_ woke them to dock manually the bright gold automation lights are still flickering on the Sevastopol doors. As her sister brings them around, with a few sharp words to Ambrose for assistance, Waverly peers out the window to her left.

“The emergency dock is in use,” she says to no one in particular.

“He did say there was a medical incident,” Beth replies, also staring out the window. Something in her tone says she’s troubled too. “If there’s some sort of epidemic and Tucker or I die out here my sister will never forgive me.” Waverly thinks she mutters some kind of prayer or charm but isn’t sure what good it’ll do if there really is an outbreak of any kind.

She takes solace in knowing at least she’d insisted they all get their vaccinations up to date before leaving port.

“Captain.” Waverly looks back at her sister at the tight tone to her voice. “There appears to be an issue with docking while the station is set to automatic and we’re being forced into manual.”

Lucado sighs. “Suggestions?”

“Get someone down there to force the docking mechanism to accept a manual input,” Wynonna says in a way that carries an implied ‘duh’ along with it. Waverly smiles to herself.

“Haught!”

There’s a moment of silence before, “Yes, ma’am?”

“How’s the hypersleep diagnostic going?”

“The chambers themselves seem alright,” she says. “But there’s something going on with the console that I’m worried about. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Do that. Gardener!”

Beth jumps just a little even though it’s not aimed at her. The channel flicks quickly until Tucker’s voice can be heard. “Yes, captain.” He sounds bored. Just those two words are enough to make Waverly shudder. She honestly has no idea how Nicole works with the man without punching him in the nose.

“Get down to the docking bay and get the settings sorted. Then make sure the crane moves the cargo without any problems. We’ve had enough technical issues for the rest of our voyage.”

“Yes, captain.” His channel clicks to silent and no one speaks for a long moment.

Until Wynonna says, “Kinda hope the doors don’t work at all and we can just go home.”

Waverly agrees wholeheartedly.

 

* * *

 

 

Of _course_ it’s him who gets the shitty job. Haught gets to sit around up in the med bay tinkering with systems that probably work flawlessly and he has to come down here and stick his hands in the greasy mechanics of the cargo bay docking systems. Naturally. And this is _after_ Haught got to go and fix the holo-desk Waverly had reported issues with.

How come he never gets to do that stuff? One day he’s going to beat that stupid smug ginger to the comms when Waverly calls about a problem and he’ll get to be the one who saves the day. See how she likes him then.

Tucker huffs as he drops down off the grated metal catwalk and edges towards the console at the far end of the bay. Whoever designed this stupid ship clearly had no love for the engineers who keep it running. If they did they wouldn’t have made the access walkways so fucking narrow. What if he had to bring a toolkit with him? He’d fall to his death, that’s what.

There were three layers of cargo bays, the top two of which are open vertically to accommodate some of the mining equipment they occasionally delivered to the outer rim colonies. Each ‘floor’ has a ring of metal catwalk around the edges so those accepting the cargo can make sure they are getting the right crates (his job today, lovely). Above and below him, great tracks of metal allowed for the magnetic systems to place the crates to the inch. A massive crane hangs from the front wall so crates can be rearranged (though most docks would have their own for sorting).

The doors at the end – his destination – fold out like an accordion because the bottom of the three ‘floors’ is for vehicles and they have to get off somehow. Or on, as the case may be. They have two industrial forklifts in their cargo hold at the moment, both brand new, right off the Weyland-Yutani manufacturing line before they left.

“Oh yes, Tucker,” he mutters to himself, throwing a hand out to the hip high railing as he stumbles. “One day you won’t be down here. No. You’ll actually be a valued member of the team.” Like his sister up on the bridge or the other sister who’s in charge of some port somewhere. God knows where but one day he’ll be in a position more befitting his talents.

 _As if_ , the little voice in the back of his head whispers but he ignores it.

He reaches the door console and keys into it. Then he throws his hands up in askance.

“What’s the problem here?” he calls, knowing Matriarch will pick up his words and project them at the bridge. “The console is set to automatic.”

After a second the speakers above him spit Wynonna’s voice out. “Really? My consoles are all set to manual. See if you can override that one and open the doors manually.”

Do this menial job, Tucker; do that degrading task, Tucker. He grumbles nonsense words under his breath as he palms through the console’s programming, lips twitching sourly.  Eventually he finds the switch to override the automation and flips it.

The mechanism above him groans but fails to open.

“The docking joint needs to be unlocked,” he hears Beth chime in. “You’ll have to check that one too and if it doesn’t work right away you may have to get into the lock itself.”

Fucking women. She should come down here and give it a try. It’s not like all this stuff is kept together or anything. Oh no. All the consoles are apart from each other and require effort to get to. Especially the docking mechanism which is actually _inside_ the hinge for whatever reason the genius designers decided on.

He hauls himself back up onto the main catwalk and then up onto the supports on the walls where the locks for the door are housed. It takes Tucker a good minute of tugging to pry the access panel open and slip inside.

Weyland-Yutani is going to the dogs, in his opinion. There was a time not too long ago that he could’ve walked onto any of their cargo or research ships and found the upper positions filled by men who actually know what they’re doing. As opposed to this bloody vessel and its alarming number of incompetent women. How Lucado got to be in charge of a ship is beyond him, she doesn’t even know how to fly. And she probably couldn’t tell a wrench from a spanner if all their lives depended on it.

He finds the lock mechanism and at first it seems just fine but then he realises an override has been activated on the control panel keeping it locked into their safety position, the one for quarantine. He spares only a fleeting second to wonder how the hell that happened.

“This is going to take a minute,” he says loudly enough for Matriarch to hear him.

“No, no,” Wynonna’s voice comes through. “Just keeping two thousand tonnes of metal from colliding with a commercial outpost supporting the lives of at least five hundred people. We won’t all die a fiery death if this goes badly. Take your time.”

He thinks he hears Lucado say something to close the channel but he’s too busy coming up with new and exciting insults for Wynonna. Perhaps one day he’ll even have the chance to say some of them to her face.

Tucker has to force the system to accept the unlock order in a way that means the safety measure will be overridden until they can get to another port to make some proper repairs to the mechanism. He can’t tell precisely what’s gone wrong but it won’t be an easy fix.

Perhaps her highness the queen of engineering could do it. But she’s too busy fiddling with their beds. So.

Of course though, once the lock is in place and ready to be opened it doesn’t wait for him to get out of the hatch. No, why would it. Set to manual it might be, but it is waiting for the lock to actually deactivate. He probably should’ve thought of that.

The door grinds open and the lock flips up. As the bay doors swing down, the ballast in the mechanism runs down and in his haste to get back to the service panel he trips on one of the grates, catching his chin on a pipe on the way down.

He has enough time to roll over and see the ballast fall; to wish he’d never fucking set foot on this goddamn ship. For that split second he’s frozen by the knowledge that his life as he knows it is over and there’ll be nothing left of him but a smear on the inside of the lock.

“Gardener! Get up!”

Lucado’s stern tone snaps him alert and he scuttles back.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. The last ballast drops behind him just as he ducks through the panel.

He slams it shut with a deep exhalation.

So almost dying. That’s a thing that happened today now, nice.

He blames Haught.

(And also the morons who designed the lock mechanism.)

(But mostly Haught.)

He almost expects someone to say something over the comms about how relieved they are he didn’t get squashed by the poorly thought out doors (his sister maybe?) and that it’s so great he was there to risk his neck so they could pick up their cargo. No cargo is worth his life. That doesn’t happen.

“Stand by to receive cargo,” Lucado tells him instead.

He hopes they all choke.

It is very satisfying, however, to watch the locks click solidly into place, anchoring them to Sevastopol. The station’s cargo hold is a much wider space than theirs and there are several other platforms – two that he can see – where ships can collect from. Cranes on great big pivots hang from the ceiling and immediately begin to scoop crates from the selection on the bay floor to deposit within the _Epimetheus_ hold.

“ _Manifest loading on console four_ ,” Matriarch tells him, pinging the console in question.

Tucker grumbles as he drops down from the hatch, boots grating harshly against the catwalk. He snatches the portable screen from the console as he stalks past. The cranes are efficient and he’s not really feeling this job at all so when they start loading the crates on the far left end of the middle ‘floor’ it takes him a while to catch up. What with having to trot down the stairs first.

Other than the two forklifts (and their diplomatic passenger, which, whole other rant right there), he counts a total of twenty-one crates they should end up with. He checks off their identification numbers as he goes past and silently curses the idiot who decided not to list (or load) them in a proper sequence.

Number four hundred and seventy-six is loaded after the crate with the ID two thousand and twelve but before crate one-nine-nine. It makes no sense and he would very much like to throw the tablet now.

He doesn’t, instead he walks up the stairs to the top catwalk and finishes his tally. Once the last crate has been loaded the cranes from Sevastopol whir back to a stationary position and the bay doors begin to grind closed. He looks up with an arched eyebrow, that shouldn’t happen until the tally has been confirmed. He’s about to say something about that, only he reaches the end of the top row and stops, eyebrows reversing into a frown.

“There’s an extra crate here,” he calls.

He gets no reply.

The doors clank together and the lock makes a truly agonising sound as it thunks back into position.

“Hey!” he shouts up at the ceiling. “Matriarch! We have a crate that’s unaccounted for.”

Again no response.

He kicks the crate and slams the tablet back into its slot beside the console.

Then, “What do you mean an extra crate?” Beth asks. “We have twenty-one on the manifest.”

“Yeah, I can read.” He throws a hand out at the one in front of him. “This makes twenty-two. What is it?”

It looks no different whatsoever to the others. They could all have come from the exact same point of origin and contain all identical things. But the point is he’s not going to be the one boiled for this if it turns out they’ve picked up someone else’s shit.

Matriarch must patch something through the speakers halfway into an explanation because the next thing he hears, “… had a malfunction in the cargo bay. Security measures are automated to lock out anyone in case of certain incidents. This seems to have been a glitch but our technician isn’t sure how long it’ll take her to fix it.”

“And the extra cargo crate?” Lucado asks.

Something fizzles on the other end of the line and Tucker frowns. “Keep it. We’ll make a note that extra supplies were sent to the outpost next time requisitions are made and account for it.”

“So it’s all the same sort of supplies?” she presses.

“I guess so. Like I said before, some of the crates were redistributed from the _Anesidora_ ,” the man explains. “We’ve had some issues with supply routes lately. I think eight of your crates are from them. Should all be the same. Though you can always check, everything inside should be sealed.”

There’s a commotion on the other end of the connection and it cuts out with a sharp snap that rings in Tucker’s ear for a few seconds.

“What happened?” he asks.

It takes a bit before he hears Waverly’s wonderful voice, “They appear to be having some electrical issues.”

“I can’t hail them,” Jonas adds.

“I vote we bail before that station explodes or something,” Wynonna puts in.

“Agreed.” At least three others say that and not all from the bridge. So this is being broadcast through the whole ship. Sure.

He glares at the extra crate for another long moment as he waits to hear the verdict. His arms fold reflexively and his fingers tap against his bicep.

At last Lucado says, “Wynonna take us out, we’ll make for our final port. Tucker, open those extra crates and double check we’re delivering what we promised.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Hang on,” Beth says softly. “There. I’ve marked the eight from the _Anesidora_ on the console so you know which ones are which.”

Waverly brings up a feed of the cargo bay so she can watch as Tucker checks the crates. It seems an awful lot of things that aren’t _super_ unusual on their own are happening together and every time something else piles on her anxiety climbs a notch or three. Nothing about this sits well with her. If there were a way to eject herself from the situation she probably would.

She tells herself it’s just a feeling and busies herself plotting a course to the outer rim planet they’re supposed to be making this delivery to. She doesn’t know its code because this was _meant_ to be an automated process. It’s LC-057 she thinks and smiles when that’s the one that pops up in their itinerary.

“Waverly.” She looks up at her sister’s voice. “Project the cargo feed up here for me, would you? This doesn’t feel right.”

Waverly is so relieved she isn’t the only one that she does so without even asking Lucado if that’s alright. Doesn’t care if Lucado dislikes it anyway.

Their route will take them through two more systems but she thinks she can finagle a little and save them some time. They might cut through space they shouldn’t but at least this way they won’t be stuck out here for fourteen more long months without hypersleep.

As if to allay those particular fears, Nicole’s voice comes over the comms. “The hypersleep chambers are all good to reset, captain,” she says. “There was some… edit made to one of the programmed orders. Looks like it was done manually but I don’t see how that’s possible. I think it’s likely just an error.”

“Thank you, Haught.” And then the line closes. Lucado should probably work on her people skills, Waverly thinks. “How are the crates coming, Gardener?”

Tucker lifts his face to peer at the camera and she’s not sure but she thinks he rolls his eyes. “Just great, captain. Two left.”

“All clear?”

“So far it’s exactly as advertised.”

Waverly goes back to her task as Wynonna says, “Captain, can’t we just leave it? The cargo isn’t our problem.”

“I’m not giving the colony garbage, Earp. We will make sure the goods are as promised. End of story.”

She thinks she hears her sister mutter about how this is a mistake but she’s too busy plotting the last of their course. It’s not half bad she decides when she’s done. It’ll shave off about five months which is five fewer months to spend trapped in a tin can with people she doesn’t like. Wins all round.

Waverly glances up just as Tucker is wrestling with the handle of the last crate. Even though there’s no sound with the footage, she imagines she can hear the hinges squeal as they open unwillingly. It’s dark inside the crate and Waverly isn’t sure whether it’s just distortion on the screen or if it’s that gloomy in the hold.

When Tucker pulls his hand away from the handle there seems to be something clinging to it, like saliva maybe. Waverly pulls a face at it and Tucker shakes it from his wrist with a disgusted jerking movement.

She watches as he unclips the flashlight from his belt and takes a step into the crate.

“There’s nothing in here, captain,” he says, voice tinny from inside the metal box. “It’s empty… oh no wait. Looks like there’s a leather bag or something in here? Maybe some sort of hide?”

“Should be no hide in there,” Beth tells him, flicking through the manifest. “It’s not listed.”

“Give us a proper description,” Wynonna requests none too politely.

“It’s… well I don’t know,” he groans. “It’s sort of round, looks like it has a lid or a flap of some kind? Just looks like a brown bag, honestly. I’m gonna pull it out so you can see it.”

Waverly looks away and it’s only for a moment but her gaze snaps up again so fast she probably gets whiplash when there’s a shrill sound like screaming over the comms. Tucker dives out of the crate and lands on his back, hands and feet scrabbling against the grating.

“There’s something in there!” he yells. He starts to say something else but it’s cut off when a… thing… like a crab maybe, scuttles from inside the crate and leaps at him. Beth has her hands both clasped over her mouth, eyes wide and white above them. The screen flickers and Wynonna stands abruptly as if she thinks that’ll make the image clear.

When it does, Tucker is lying still on the catwalk, flashlight on the ground near his outstretched hand. The crab… thing… is on his face. Waverly feels the colour drain from her skin.

“Captain, we have to lock down the hold,” Wynonna says. “That’s not normal or benevolent.”

Lucado leans forward. “It doesn’t look like it’s killed him,” she muses. “Willa, fetch a gurney and head to the cargo hold.”

“Everything alright, ma’am?” Willa’s voice comes over the comms a little flat. But then she hasn’t just seen this creature attack Tucker.

“Gardener has had an accident.”

That is decidedly _not_ how Waverly would describe it. Her eyes are so, so wide when she glances at Wynonna that she worries they might fall out. Lucado can’t rightly be serious? Surely not, no way.

“Can’t we just eject it all into space?” she asks so softly she doesn’t think anyone will hear. Maybe Beth, at the outside.

“You’re being dramatic,” Jonas snipes at her (okay maybe she _hadn’t_ spoken soft enough). “Can you imagine what’ll happen if we bring back the first real evidence of a new species in decades?” He laughs as if he has recently put a lot of thought into it.

When Waverly turns to look at Lucado though there’s an expression on her face that worries her to her toes. It’s a look that says she agrees with Jonas.

Lucado stands slowly and eyes them all in turn. “Stay at your stations.” Then to the comms, “Perry, prep the medical station.” She’s striding off the bridge then and Waverly hopes it’s just as simple as she seems to think.

Wynonna buzzes through the comms a little more quietly when she says, “Levi, put breakfast on hold.”

“Everything good, Wy?”

“No, Levi. I don’t think it is.”

 

* * *

 

 

Perry just about has his face pressed to the glass separating him from the body of Tucker Gardener. Lucado stands beside him with a lot less concern to her posture. Once Willa has sealed the medical bay, locking it down according to quarantine protocols, Lucado stares at them both in turn.

“Keep an eye on him, Crofte,” she says to him. “Earp, I want you to go down to the hold and check the crate. Wear protective gear in case there are more of these things. Seal the crate back up but get the sack Gardener was talking about out first; I want to know what it is.”

Willa hesitates and Perry doesn’t blame her in the least.

(He thinks it’s a bit annoying to have three Earps on the same ship, actually. Especially when Lucado only ever refers to them by surname. Must get confusing on the bridge.)

After a beat where she opens her mouth – perhaps to question or delay as Perry would in her shoes – she ducks her head and walks off to find the hazard gear. He quietly wishes they had a properly stocked armoury on board but since this isn’t a military mission and none of their eleven crew members (or their one passenger) has any combat training they’re limited to a few basic weapons.

He’s still staring at Tucker lying on the table with the spidery thing wrapped around his face. He didn’t get a good look at it before Willa was insisting on running a decontamination sequence, but it looks as if the long fingers are designed specifically for a purpose like this: to latch onto a head shape. It has a long thin tail section too, wound tightly around Tucker’s throat.

Perry has a lot of questions he thinks he could _probably_ answer if he could get into the chamber (which he can’t while the sequence is running) but he isn’t really sure he wants to anyway. _Perhaps_ he could figure out what the thing is doing to Tucker. _Perhaps_ he could remove it safely. _Perhaps_. But it could also be that perhaps he gets attacked too. What if this thing is feeding off Tucker? What happens when it’s done? Is this a mature instance of the creature and what does it look like if not?

His scientific curiosity niggles at him, sure, but he’s not certain if it’s bad enough that he wants to really know what that thing is.

“Crofte,” Lucado says softly and he tenses. “When the cycle is finished I want you in there running scans. I want to know what this thing is, what it’s doing, and how to get it off him. Understood?”

He pauses just a second before muttering, “Yes, ma’am.”

Then she’s heading off again, calling to Nicole to get a hypersleep chamber prepped in case Tucker doesn’t recover and they need to put him on ice until they get to the colony and can access proper medical equipment. If it was up to him, Perry would put him on ice as soon as the decontamination was done.

There’s still a few minutes left on the cycle when Willa comes back into the corridor. She’s pushing one of their equipment trolleys and her hazard mask hangs from the cords down her back. On the trolley is a lump of… something. Lucado had said Tucker described it like a leather bag and he can see why. It’s mostly a brownish colour but there are blotches of green in places where it looks as if the skin has peeled away, like a moulting snake.

Flaps at the top are peeled back and there’s some kind of liquid inside, it’s thick so perhaps more like mucus. The outside of the sac appears ridged, rough, a natural surface.

“I think it’s an egg,” Willa says without preamble. She rolls the trolley into the main medical area and grabs a pair of forceps, using them to lift the flaps. “It’s all a organic material, see how thick it is? But it’s more rubbery than a duck egg, for instance. I think it’s muscle of some kind. And look.” She slides her forceps into the opening and plucks at what Perry supposes are ligaments. “I think it creates sustenance to keep that thing alive for a long period.”

“So it’s an advanced alien egg,” Perry summarises. “Nice. But what’s it doing to Tucker?”

Willa isn’t listening to him. She’s pulling a high powered lamp across the desk to shine on the outside of the sac. Despite himself, Perry shuffles closer to look. She pokes the forceps against the exterior and runs it lightly across the surface when veins appear against the lamp. As she gets lower the veins seem to clump together in a central mass.

“It’s like a nervous system,” she breathes. “That’s fascinating. What does an egg need nerves for? I wonder what it does.”

Perry leans down with her. He touches the outside carefully along one of the ridges. It’s a slick surface, perhaps the mucus inside is excreted as a sort of defence or maybe temperature regulation.

“The veins here are connecting all the way around the outside,” he notes, indicating how the ridges follow a pattern. “See here? It’s capable of experiencing touch I’d say.”

“We won’t know for sure unless we dissect it,” Willa says, standing again. “It’s like its own contained habitat, designed entirely to ensure that thing it hatched lives as long as possible and in all sorts of environments. That’s incredible.”

“So it probably feeds nutrients to the spider thing, then?” he muses, peering into the top of the sac carefully. “I wonder how that works. What does it feed them, how did it know to wake up when Tucker got near?”

Willa rubs her gloved hand across the surface and flexes her fingers when it comes away coated in that slime. “Truly fascinating.” She looks up when the decontamination cycle pings its completion. “Perhaps the spider will have something to add to this.”

“Willa,” he warns. “That could be dangerous.”

She shrugs at him. “If the egg sac was keeping it alive then without the constant flow of nutrients it could have a very short life span.”

“Unless it’s feeding off Tucker somehow,” he points out as she unlocks the door.

“Yes, that’s true. But if it’s feeding off him then it won’t pose much threat to us.”

“You don’t know that.” She looks over her shoulder to give him a flat look. And despite his words, he steps after her into the chamber.

Tucker is breathing which is a good start, at least. The first thing Willa does is use her forceps to pry at one of the reddish fingers wrapping around Tucker’s face. In response, they clench tighter. She sets them aside. The exposed side of the creature seems to be covered in a chitinous fibre; it’s mostly the same red or brown all over though there are some segments with darker stripes. He’s analysing the colours in an effort to not think about what it is and how dangerous it might be, he knows that, but at least if his brain is trying to catagorise it into a family of scorpions or something he’s not scared out of his mind considering the rest.

“So it’s aware of interference,” he says. She hums. “Maybe we should scan it before anything else?”

She blinks at him for a moment and then nods. “Alright. I’ll attach some nodes to monitor his vitals if you prep the scanner.”

He sets about his task without enthusiasm. Something about being in the room with that thing makes him uncomfortable. And sure, it’ll be nice to know what it is, what it’s doing and all because then maybe they can… help. But it still seems a little… wrong.

Perry swings the scanner up so Tucker’s gurney can be wheeled inside and loads the computer system up.

“Matriarch,” he begins, starting the initiation of systems that the scanner itself acknowledges with a soft whirring. “I’d like a full body scan. Focus on his head for me and let us know if there are any abnormalities in his vitals or nutrient levels.”

“ _Prepping sequence_ ,” she confirms. “ _Scan ready_.”

Once Willa has finished attaching the nodules she wheels the gurney into the scanner, its arm immediately flickering to life and swinging across his body. Willa joins Perry at the computer and they watch as images are thrown together by Matriarch.

Willa’s finger jabs at the screen. “It’s injecting some sort of sedative? Is that what that is?”

He shrugs. “Looks like it. How else would it keep him under for so long.”

When the arm sweeps over Tucker’s face and down his chest Perry says, “Wait, go back,” and Matriarch obliges. “There, that. It has a tube down his throat?”

Willa reaches past him to manoeuvre the video feed and hums thoughtfully. “Could be oxygen,” she suggests. “His airways are both blocked by the body so it has to be getting air somehow.”

Perry pauses before saying, “It could also be extracting something from him.”

They exchange a glance and Willa tells Matriarch to look for flow of liquids. When the visual shifts from x-ray to the black and white superscan they can see the creature pumping something in and also back out.

“I’d say it’s helping him breathe,” Willa says, eyes squinting at the screen. “That’s what it looks like anyway. And his vitals are holding steady. Matriarch, is there evidence that his nutrient levels are fluctuating at all?”

“ _Nutrient levels stable_.”

“So it’s not feeding off him,” Perry sighs. “Then what _is_ it doing? He was breathing just fine without it on his face. I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I,” Willa concurs. There’s something in her tone that sets his teeth on edge, though and he looks over at her. She buzzes the comms to get the bridge. “Captain, Tucker is stable for now.”

“What have you learned?”

Willa hesitates before replying. “It might best if we discuss that in person.”

 

* * *

 

 

Nicole feels her hackles rise at the tone in Willa’s voice.

“So it’s nothing good then,” Wynonna huffs. Not that they really know that for sure, but Nicole is ready to agree with her all the same. “Should eject him before he infects us all with… whatever.”

“You don’t think…” Beth begins softly and Nicole turns to see her face drained of colour. “You don’t think this was the medical incident they had at Sevastopol, do you?”

Wynonna shrugs. “Probably not.”

“That guy said we were cleared to dock,” Nicole points out. “I don’t think they knew that thing was in the crate.”

“The crate that came from the _Anesidora_ ,” Waverly says. “He _did_ say that one of the crew from that ship was the one with the emergency.”

“You think they were transporting some kind of illegal animal?” Jonas asks, scoffing.

“It’s not unreasonable to assume that since the crate came from the same place as the medical emergency that the two are connected,” Waverly tells him tartly.

“Sevastopol is a space port,” he huffs. “It could’ve come from anywhere. I bet the _Anesidora_ hid it in their cargo because they didn’t want anyone else to find it. A _new species_ , come on.”

“No new species is worth lives, Jonas,” Ambrose says quietly.

“Agreed.” Wynonna nods her head slowly. She opens her mouth to say something else but the doors to the bridge whoosh open and interrupt her. They, all six of them, look around at the sound.

Stepping onto the deck is Levi, his predominant role is cooking and inventory, and he’s accompanied by their single passenger for this voyage, a diplomat heading for a recently established colony. Her purpose there is unknown to all of them but it’s also unimportant, Nicole thinks. Levi makes immediately for Ambrose’s console but the diplomat – Nicole’s pretty sure her name is Kiersten – eyes them all uncertainly.

“So what’s happened?” she asks, hands fumbling together at her belt. “I heard some of the conversation through the comms. A man has been hurt?”

In a way that seems completely implausible, every one of them exchanges glances with the rest before turning back to Kiersten.

“It seems,” Wynonna begins slowly, unofficially elected to speak for them all. “That we picked up an extra crate at Sevastopol. When one of the engineers went to verify the contents he was… hurt. We think. It’s hard to tell. There’s a like…” she motions putting her hand over her face. “A crab thing attached to his mouth.”

“Willa and Perry are looking into it,” Waverly puts in a little optimistically. “He’ll be okay.” Nicole thinks just maybe Waverly’s words are directed at Beth as much as Kiersten.

Their diplomat fixes each of them in turn with an expression that’s equal parts horrified and demanding. “He was attacked?”

“Yes,” Nicole agrees. “Yes, he was. Willa put him through decontamination though, so whatever it is, we shouldn’t have to worry about infection.”

Wynonna lifts a finger. “Just out of curiosity though, you _are_ up to date on your vaccinations, yes?”

Kiersten blanches just slightly as she nods. “Where did the crate come from? Sevastopol? Did they know what was in it?”

“Unclear,” Jonas tells her flatly. “Probably not.”

Kiersten’s head jerks and she takes two steps back towards the exit. “I’m going to lock myself in my room. I don’t want this thing getting me, too.”

“We’ll let you know if the situation changes,” Nicole assures her.

Once Kiersten is gone, though, she looks at Waverly and wonders if maybe she hasn’t got the right idea.

 

* * *

 

 

The liquid splashes into the metal tray with a hiss.

Perry and Willa both bend down to look and the blood – if it can indeed be termed that at all – burns right through it. Willa is very quick to pull her hand away from the incision she made just above the spider’s second knuckle. When she holds up the scalpel, Perry can see that the blade is dulled, chipped away as if by rust.

He shifts the tray out of the way and finds a hole in the floor of the med bay.

Then he looks up at Lucado.

“Haught!” she calls. “We have a problem, get to the second floor corridor outside the dorms and check for holes. Be careful, it seems there’s an acid… leak.”

There’s a moment of static from the bridge (an argument, Perry thinks), and then silence. They wait and wait and wait until they hear Nicole’s voice through the comms.

“Found your hole, captain. It’s not bad,” she says. “Looks like the acid burned through all the plating here but when it hit the floor it ate some of the top panel away. Never made it to the second layer.”

“That’s alarming,” Perry says to no one in particular.

“Is there any damage to any of the systems, Haught?”

“No, ma’am. Nothing was damaged.” She’s quiet a moment and then asks, “What happened exactly?”

Lucado stares expectantly at Perry and he feels his stomach drop. There’s no moisture in his mouth when he opens it but thankfully Willa has an answer ready.

“It appears that the creature has defence mechanisms to prevent its removal from Tucker’s face,” she explains. “Acid for blood is certainly a deterrent. If we try to force it off it’ll kill him. And perhaps do significant damage to the ship as well.”

There is a very, very long and tense moment before Nicole asks, “So what do we do?”

Perry very much wants to suggest they put him in cryo immediately, but Lucado beats him to it. “We wait,” she says. “And see what happens. He may recover and then you two can study the creature safely.”

She sweeps out before he has the opportunity to say that it’ll hardly be safe to dissect a creature with acid for blood.

 

* * *

 

 

Nicole is back on the bridge which Waverly thinks is perfectly fair given the situation means none of them really want to be alone. (She’s also more than a little relieved to see her in one piece after apparently the _acid incident_.) Wynonna had taken that as further evidence for launching it from the ship. Instead it’s just been sitting on Tucker’s face for the last two hours.

Lucado, for once, doesn’t seem to mind that there are people on the bridge that don’t strictly need to be there. Levi hasn’t gone back to the stores yet either, perching instead on a desk at the back near the door. He’s searching through a database Ambrose had given him looking for any indication that a creature like this has been encountered before.

So far he hasn’t had much luck.

Waverly is paging through the nearby systems wondering if it perhaps has a place of origin in a system here but all the planets, moons and large asteroids worth noting have been documented and explored – where feasible – already. And none make any mention of a face-eating crab that bleeds acid.

She’s starting to regret this voyage, actually.

“Course is set, captain,” Wynonna eventually puts into the uneasy silence. “We’re automated until we reach our destination.”

Lucado nods. “Then there’s no need for us to be on the bridge. Levi, how are our food supplies?”

He starts at being addressed and looks up, face fixed into an expression of anxiety. “We’ll have enough to get to the colony, ma’am,” he tells her. “But only if we remain in hypersleep the entire way back to Earth, our supply wasn’t intended to sustain us more than forty-percent of travel time. And that’s including emergency rations. I checked.”

“Earp, how long until we get back to Earth?”

Waverly blinks. “Well it should be nine months to the colony. And then the return trip which is three years.” She’s still flicking through her log though, so she adds, “Though there are several other inhabited locations nearby including two stations similar to Sevastopol, one mining outpost on the planet LV-435 and one fully colonised planet listed as Zeta Major. That one is only a few months from our destination.”

Regardless of Lucado’s final decision, though, they’d be stuck in space for at least another year. God she wishes they’d never come out of hypersleep. The captain lifts an eyebrow at Levi and he stumbles over his words.

“Oh yes. Yes we’ll have plenty of supplies to reach the colony. And if we restock before leaving we should have plenty to get back to earth… So long as the hypersleep systems don’t go down again.”

“Right.” Lucado stands. “We can vacate the bridge then. Shut down any systems we don’t need and lock the ship to autopilot.”

Jonas moves to do as instructed but before Lucado can give them any further orders the comms crackle again.

“Captain,” Willa says softly. “You might want to come and see this.”

 

* * *

 

 

Waverly knows that when Willa sent for the captain the rest of them were not also intended to crowd into the corridor outside the med bay. That doesn’t stop them though. She has her fingers wrapped tightly around Nicole’s wrist as they follow Lucado down to the medical bay. And when they all stop in front of the big glass screens she feels something akin to relief roll through her.

Beth heaves a deep sigh and just about leans all her weight against the wall.

Tucker sits upright on the gurney, face devoid of alien face-crabs. Her hold on Nicole’s wrist doesn’t relax though. He’s covered in sweat as if from a fever and drinks two whole cups of water when Perry passes them over. Whatever the face-crab did it wasn’t keeping him hydrated.

And okay. Waverly isn’t Tucker’s _biggest_ fan (actually he’s creepy and she feels dirty whenever he so much as looks at her), but she is mostly relieved that he’s not in a weird comatose state anymore.

She can’t hear what Lucado is asking Perry and Willa, but her eyes follow their movements as if that’ll help. Nicole shifts until her hand is wound through Waverly’s when Perry motions to a tray over on a bench.

In it, the face-crab sits on its back. Or what she imagines is its back anyway. The little fingers that had been wrapped securely around Tucker’s face now curl inwards like a dead spider’s legs. She can also now see a strange tube looking part on its soft underside and although she does wonder momentarily what it might have been for, she also gags and looks away quickly, not really wanting to think about it.

“Is it dead, do you think?” Nicole asks softly.

“I guess so.” Wynonna waves through the glass. “It’s not moving.”

“I wonder what happened to it.”

Beth sucks in a sharp breath. “It doesn’t matter what happened,” she says. “My brother is alive. That’s the important thing.”

Waverly nods her head in agreement. Though it seems strange that the face-crab would wake up, attach itself to Tucker and then not do anything to him until it just falls over dead. That’s not how things work, everything has a purpose and all organisms aspire to reproduce; for the continuation of their kind.

She doesn’t say any of that though. She doesn’t want to upset Beth.

Lucado steps back into the corridor with a curve to her lips that is quite honestly the closest thing to a smile Waverly has ever seen grace her features.

“Levi, get breakfast ready. Willa says Tucker will be just fine, though she’s going to run a few tests to be certain before they join us.”

Waverly’s eyebrows climb at that too. “She never uses our given names,” she whispers to Nicole. She gets a squeeze to her hand as response.

With one last look over her shoulder into the med bay, she allows herself to be tugged away.

The mess hall is less cafeteria style and more like a common room with a long table and padded white benches ringing it. Off to the side is a more open space that itself drops down a step into what might be termed a living room area if this weren’t a space ship and instead a warm home. Waverly lets Nicole lead her to one corner of the room by the table and they sink down together.

Wynonna is already there, she’s twirling a squat glass between her fingers. It’s empty save for three spherical ice cubes (an oxymoron, she knows). She has a pinched look to her face that Waverly knows means she’s thinking too hard on a topic she doesn’t like.

“It just died?” she whispers when it becomes obvious that no one else will join them. Ambrose and Levi have ensconced themselves over in the den and Beth is pacing by the door impatiently waiting for her brother.

“I don’t understand why,” Waverly adds, leaning past Nicole so she doesn’t have to raise her voice. “Animals don’t _do_ that.”

Wynonna nods but Nicole only squeezes her hand again.

“If things take another turn for the worst,” Nicole says slowly. “I vote we get to the _Icarus_ and leave.”

Waverly’s eyes widen and she looks around. “We who? Just _us_?” Nicole nods solemnly. “What about the others? What about Willa?”

Wynonna’s face crumples. “Look, baby girl. Too many weird things have happened just today for my liking. Jonas and Lucado seem pretty set on finding out what this thing is doing and well… Willa and Perry were nerd central down there. You think they want to leave their pet project?”

“And I don’t think Beth will come with us without her brother,” Nicole adds. “Who I don’t trust now that he’s had face-crab’s creepy tube down his throat.”

“Did you ever trust him?” Wynonna asks flatly.

“No. But now I _really_ don’t.”

Waverly tries to subtly indicate the boys in the corner. “And them? What about Kiersten?”

“The fewer people who suspect us of bailing the better.”

Waverly opens her mouth to ask how bad this turn for the worst has to be to qualify for their ship-jumping plan but the doors swish open and Tucker shuffles in. Beth wastes no time throwing her arms around his neck in a hug that he looks like he’d rather had never happened. Willa and Perry are behind him talking in low voices with Lucado. Jonas is there too.

She hates to admit it when Wynonna’s right but it appears the four of them are plenty happy to study the face-crab now that it’s apparently no longer a threat. Emphasis on _apparently_.

Lucado stops to speak with Levi who then hurries off with Ambrose. Everyone else more or less gathers around the table. Beth departs for a second but is back well before the others and she’s brought Kiersten with her, clearly coaxed from her room with promises of food and Tucker’s recovery.

When Kiersten sees Tucker seated at the table, looking his usual sallow self (if a little more sweat-drenched than normal) she visibly relaxes. She even sinks down beside Beth to talk to them which Waverly thinks is brave, honestly.

Conversation picks up a bit after that but Waverly is too enamoured by the way Nicole is playing with her fingers under the table to pay the others any mind whatsoever. It’s been a stressful day thus far so it’s nice to just lean into her shoulder and enjoy a little bit of unwinding. She’s gotten pretty good at ignoring the way Tucker looks at her (or Nicole, or both) so it’s not much of a bother now either. Though he does seem very interested in making sure they all know he risked his life for them and he survived the lock mechanism almost crushing him and also a face-crab attack.

As if any of that would make him seem less of a creep to her.

Levi and Ambrose return not long later with a kitchen trolley on top of which is a spread of breakfast rations. Nothing fancy; powdered eggs and coffee, the fake bread-biscuits that come in little packets and rehydrated fruits. Waverly is actually thankful it’s not just the nutrient paste she ate on her last voyage. That stuff is garbage. She supposes though that Weyland-Yutani can afford to give their crews better fare.

Nicole releases her fingers to reach across the table and grab some plates and start dishing food out. They’re on rations, sure but at least they have options. And she thinks to snag the only peach on the platter they brought out which is honestly just another reason Waverly loves her. God bless.

It goes to show how stressful all those malfunctions actually had been on them when the conversation falters and they fall to eating. Hypersleep always does take a lot out of you, especially waking up. But Waverly hadn’t even realised she was so hungry until she’s polished off the peach and a couple of the bread-biscuits and is looking for more. She’s not looking forward to doing this again on the return trip.

(If there is a return trip. She squashes that thought hastily.)

And then she’s wondering if her moment of pessimism didn’t jinx them because Tucker is putting his half eaten biscuit down and pressing the heel of his palm against his sternum. He sucks in a lungful of air and it whistles through his teeth in a way Waverly doesn’t think is healthy.

“I thought you said he was _fine_ ,” Beth shouts, standing and whirling on Willa.

“He was!”

“Then what’s going on?”

Perry beats Willa to Tucker’s side and puts a hand to his chest. He mumbles something and Tucker sucks in another breath, this one sounds harsh and shallow, as though there’s something preventing his lungs from expanding fully.

“It hurts to breathe,” he rasps. “What’s going on?”

“Just take another breath for me,” Perry instructs, but there’s unconcealed panic in his voice.

“He has no idea what’s happening,” Nicole whispers.

“If he’s infected with something we could all be at risk,” Kiersten pipes up, a stern look on her face as she rises to stare at Lucado.

“He wasn’t sick,” Willa interjects. “There were no signs of illness, no symptoms of anything.”

“Then what’s this?” Kiersten demands.

“Can we just focus on helping my brother?” Beth asks in a small voice, her hands both clasping around one of Tuckers. “Willa?”

The eldest Earp glares at Kiersten for a moment longer before turning her attention to Tucker. Levi clears a section of the table so Willa can help him lie down and then Perry is pulling his shirt open. Tucker makes a horrible groaning sound as Perry puts pressure on his ribs.

Waverly’s heart feels like it must completely stop when Perry rips his hands away. She can see something _moving_ beneath Tucker’s skin. It’s within the cage of his ribs but that doesn’t seem to be deterring whatever it is.

Nicole’s hand grips her tightly once again, she squeezes it so hard this time that it hurts just vaguely but Waverly is too horrified to pull away. To even _consider_ pulling away.

There’s a sickening cracking sound and Tucker howls, his arms and legs thrashing as if trying to beat off some assailant. One of his hands slaps to his chest and scratches, leaving little red marks.

“Out,” he pants. “Stop.” Most of what he says after that is garbled gibberish. His heels drum at the edge of the desk and he screams again.

Perry steps back. “I don’t… I can’t…” He looks like he’s on the verge of a breakdown staring blankly at Tucker’s writhing form. Willa isn’t much better. She tries to pin his hands down but clearly has no idea what’s going on or how to stop it.

There’s another grotesque crunch and Tucker’s screaming cuts off with a gurgle. In the silence that follows Beth steps forward to lay a hand on his shoulder. Willa lays her fingers against his throat and sighs, shaking her head that she found no pulse.

Waverly is so surprised by this and so torn about going to comfort Beth (which would mean losing her contact with Nicole, currently the only thing keeping her from a full blown panic attack), that it takes her a moment to realise Tucker’s body shifts. Just a little. A rock to one side. Then again.

With a horrible tearing sound and another loud crack, his ribs burst outward. Beth recoils, sprayed with blood from her brother’s chest, her soft crying terminates in a screech.

A little… worm thing wiggles free of the hole in Tucker’s body. Waverly will later congratulate herself for not throwing up. The thing doesn’t appear to have eyes; just a tiny mouth full of needle teeth and it’s easily a foot and a half in length as it slithers from the cavity covered in ick. It screeches shrilly at them, flopping onto the table.

Wynonna brings a pan down with a loud clang but misses it completely. It shrieks again, a thin wailing sound, and skitters off the table. Wynonna darts after it, pan in hand, but she returns after a few minutes the entirety of which the rest of them sort of just… gape at Tucker’s body.

“Listen,” Wynonna says, pointedly not looking at the corpse lying amidst their breakfast. “I know you said it’d be interesting to study and cool to have a new species. But that _thing_ exploded Tucker. Can we eject it from the hatch now?”

She gets a few enthusiastic nods – Perry included – but Lucado looks thoughtful.

“I’m still captain,” she says, cutting off their clamouring. “I want it in a stasis pod. We’ll take it back to the science division.”

Of the people standing in the mess exactly one of them doesn’t look at her like she’s lost her dang mind: Willa.

“It _killed_ someone,” Wynonna repeats. “All due respect, captain, but –”

“If you question me, Earp, that’s not with due respect. We will find this creature – it is only small – and confine it to a stasis pod.”

Willa is nodding her head and Waverly wants to ask why (why, why, _why_ ) they think this is a good idea but she’s frozen. She doesn’t think she can feel anything below her neck, just numbness.

Kiersten is still standing though and she doesn’t seem afraid of Lucado. “I am an official Earth diplomat,” she says and gets not another word out.

“You are a passenger on my craft,” Lucado tells her in a voice so cold it’s a wonder they don’t all snap freeze where they sit. “You will abide by my order. If you want to lock yourself in your room until it is found, do so. Otherwise keep your opinions to yourself.” Her gaze sweeps the room and Waverly shivers when it skims her. Nicole’s hand tightens around hers again. “I want the ship put into lockdown. Hatches sealed and locked for quarantine. Jonas and Levi, get to the armoury and find me the cat cage.”

Nicole makes a sound in her throat as if offended. It’s standard procedure to have a cat on board every vessel and their resident feline is more or less Nicole’s sole property. No one else really gets near Calamity Jane without her having something to say about it. Even Waverly thinks it’s a bit rich putting this little monster in Calamity Jane’s cage.

Matriarch reacts slowly to Lucado’s command but finally chimes in with, “ _Quarantine lockdown in progress. Manual completion necessary in medical bays and primary mainframe interface._ ”

No one speaks to argue with Lucado though and those with instructions begin moving. Willa and Perry stand over Tucker’s body muttering. After a beat Perry – very reluctantly it seems to Waverly – picks the corpse up bridal style to carry from the room. Willa and Beth on his heels. Kiersten glares at Lucado until she leaves and then stalks after the captain muttering something foul.

“Quarantine lockdown?” Waverly asks softly once they’re more or less alone.

“No one in or out,” Wynonna explains. “The outer hatches are all sealed and programming is locked in place. So we’re stuck on autopilot until the captain changes the order.”

“Or… should the situation _change_ , someone else can do it if they’re the ranking officer,” Nicole adds softly. “The important part though is that it means the _Icarus_ is locked until the order changes. So that plan is gonna have to wait.”


	2. in space no one can hear you scream

It takes them thirty minutes to find the cat cage and when Jonas hauls it through the doors he glares at Nicole. She glares back.

“Your bloody cat was sleeping in it,” he grumbles. “Took us ten minutes just to get her out.”

“Well it is _her_ cage,” she snaps.

He rolls his eyes and dumps the cage on the now cleared table. Cleared of body and food at least, there are a few spots of blood still on one side. Levi staggers in after him carrying what looks to be their entire arsenal of weapons and weapon-adjacent objects.

“What’s all this, Levi?” Lucado asks, arms folded.

“Anything I could find that might keep that thing from exploding our chests as well,” he says. “The largest wrench we have, sorry Nicole.” He gives her an apologetic grimace but she just nods and he moves on. “A cattle prod, dunno why we have this. A spare door strut, that antique sword we got from salvage at the station two years ago, the emergency harpoon with two spare bolts, and this extension saw.” He points to each item in turn, the harpoon is used as a movable anchor point on space walks and the extension saw is useful for severing connections that are out of arms’ reach or moving components in the ship’s bowels. What she takes from this is that he basically just took a bunch of her tools because they’re the closest things they have to actual weapons.

“Don’t we have arms in the armoury?” Waverly asks softly.

He hunches a shoulder. “Maybe, the door was locked. Matriarch refused to activate an override so I couldn’t get in.” He directs it as a question to Lucado but it’s Wynonna who answers.

“The ship’s on quarantine protocols,” she tells him. “That’s secure from everything, so arms are locked until the captain lifts the quarantine.”

“Brilliant,” Ambrose huffs unhappily. “Can’t you get in and grab some real firepower, captain?”

She leans forward. “I don’t want you killing it. This creature could be valuable, a real asset to science. It might get us all off this ship. It’s no good to any of us dead.”

No one seems to want to point out that they could all die too but Nicole is sure they’re all thinking it. Well… all of them except maybe Jonas.

Wynonna reaches across the table and hefts the harpoon. “So you want us to find it and trap it alive,” she recaps. “We only have one cage, though.”

Lucado stares at her but Levi pipes up before she has the chance to say anything horrible. “I can get some of the big pans from the kitchen?”

“Do that,” Lucado says tersely. “Then I want everyone split up to find it. Stick together and let Matriarch know if you locate it.”

As there aren’t enough weapons for every person to have one, they separate into groups of two or three. Nicole ends up carrying the cat cage after Jonas as he leaves with the cattle prod. She throws a last glance at Waverly and gives her a reassuring smile before they head down towards the engine room since – Jonas’ words – ‘she knows that hole best’.

“Lucky it wasn’t you doing the cargo inspection,” Jonas says blithely as he opens the hatch and ducks through.

“Shut your mouth, Jonas, and watch for the worm thing.”

She knows he’s probably laughing but she can’t see him so that’s fine then. It’s hot in here, the one place on the ship that doesn’t require climate control to be a warm enough temperature to live in. Nicole almost always forgets to take her jacket when she leaves, actually, but this time when she steps past the overhead coolant pipes she doesn’t even bother to remove it. Hopefully they won’t be there long enough for it to matter.

“God, you picked the right career,” Jonas grumbles, pushing his sleeves to his elbows. “How do you work in this heat?”

“Practice,” she tells him. “I’m going to check around the thrusters. Go through there and stick your head into the environment generator.”

He touches his fingers to his forehead in a mock salute and disappears through the side door. She hopes he doesn’t touch anything but at least if he does the worst thing that will happen is their moisture converter might malfunction for a few hours. Which would _suck_ but it wouldn’t be… say… a complete power failure. Which would shut off the oxygen.

Nicole rests a hand on one of the engine struts and steps over the ladder down to the internal mechanisms towards the air cycle systems. She’s instantly glad for the hand supporting her weight because as her boot comes down it slips sideways and she nearly takes a dive down the hatch which would probably break her neck. As she gets her balance back she bends to look at what tripped her.

It’s a translucent sac covered in mucus.

“Jonas,” she calls. She’s not brave enough to touch it; the face-crab had bled acid so there’s no telling what the mucus could do. But she toes it across the floor so it’s spread out a little more. “Jonas!” she tries again.

She looks up when there’s still no reply and frowns. He’s an ass but with a weird alien worm wiggling around the ship he should at least be paying a little attention. Nicole jumps back over the ladder and wipes sweat from her brow before she turns towards the environmental chamber. It’s considerably cooler in there and she’s always been thankful for its proximity to her primary work space.

Now though.

She stops dead in her tracks in the doorway, back overly warm from the engines, and face cool as the sweat chills on her skin. There is a… thing.

They’ve been saying that a lot about stuff lately but it’s always highly appropriate. She has no words to describe it.

The creature – that she assumes _used_ to be the worm – is now at least nine feet tall. It stands on two legs but has very long slender arms with hooked claws on the ends, a great big crest arches up over its shoulders, she can’t see the front of it but at least a portion of this is ridged and flat as if meant to protect the neck area. Looks unwieldy to her, but as the creature lowers itself from the ceiling – because it can apparently climb sheer walls, which, great – it lands almost silently on its two back feet and a tail uncoils behind it tipped with a spine that’s at least a foot long.

Jonas hasn’t seen it yet, he’s on the other side of the room shining his flashlight up at one of the pipes. There’s a flash of orange under the beam and Nicole realises he’s found Calamity Jane. She wants to call out, hiss, whistle, literally anything that might get his attention. But there’s a giant blue black monster between him and her and Nicole isn’t even a little bit ashamed to realise she’s frozen with fear.

It looms up behind Jonas and it must be making some kind of sound because he turns and his face goes deathly white. Something jabs out at him and Nicole _does_ scream then when whatever it is puts a hole right through Jonas’ nose. She doesn’t wait to see what happens; she spins and darts back through the hatch, slamming it shut behind her. She barely pauses to hear it click locked before she’s running full tilt down the corridor and swinging wide into the mess hall.

She’s shaking so badly she almost misses the bench and collapses right on the edge, splaying her trembling hands out on the table. She doesn’t register when people appear in the room with her, doesn’t hear what they ask her. She _does_ feel when Waverly’s hands find her face and tilt her back to look.

“Sweetheart, what happened?” Waverly’s voice is gentle, soothing.

“It…” she tries and fails. “It… _huge_.” The next thing Nicole knows Wynonna’s pressing a glass of water into her hand and perching on the table beside her. “It’s huge,” she repeats.

“The worm?” It’s Lucado’s disbelieving voice and she sees Waverly shoot her a venomous look but that doesn’t really register in her head either.

“It’s not a worm anymore, captain,” she says, voice slowly ceasing it’s shaking. “It must have shed or… I don’t know how anything could grow that quickly but I found a skin… or something like it and then it was there in the environmental chamber and Jonas… he… He’s dead it… put a hole in his face…” Her nose crinkles and her eyes close. She can still feel Waverly’s hands on her but it’s not as comforting as it was a second ago. Not when that thing is gigantic and in the ship.

There’s silence for about a minute and Nicole tries to focus only on how warm Waverly is pressed into her side.

“Can we kill it now, captain?” Wynonna’s voice is tight.

“Did you lock the door, Haught?” Lucado questions her and all she can do is nod. “Then it’s stuck down there.”

“And if it breaks something important?” Wynonna presses. “Look this thing is dangerous we have to get rid of it.”

“How exactly? There are no corridors connecting the engines on any direct path to an exit hatch and I’m not lifting the quarantine,” Lucado says firmly.

“So we sit here until it kills us all?”

“It can’t get to us,” the captain repeats.

As if to prove her completely wrong, there’s a scream from somewhere considerably closer than the engine rooms.

Nicole still has her eyes closed but she can feel when several people leave. She’s perfectly alright with sitting there listening to Waverly’s voice until the monster gets her, honestly. Nicole turns her face into Waverly’s neck and exhales.

“You’re alright.”

“It’s like something from a nightmare, Waves,” she whispers, breath catching.

“We’ll all be alright.”

Nicole isn’t sure whether she’s promising her that or trying to convince herself. It doesn’t work.

 

* * *

 

 

Given that Nicole had sealed the creature in the engine room, Wynonna is just a bit baffled to find the kitchen doors torn (or shoved?) clean off their hinges. An impressive feat, those doors are four inches thick, same as every other internal door on the ship. She and Lucado step warily through into the other room.

It looks perfectly normal to her.

She’s careful as she rounds the counter although if Nicole is to be believed – and Wynonna trusts her completely – then this thing is not easily missed. Still, she props her harpoon against her shoulder and pivots slowly.

Ambrose and Levi are on the other side of the room, huddled together with the door strut held in Levi’s shaking hands. When they see who it is the strut clatters to the floor.

“What happened?” Wynonna asks them softly.

Ambrose points behind them. “We came through the door and shut it behind us,” he says. “It’s habit. Then something hit it a few times and they just… caved right in.”

“That worm is big now, ma’am,” Levi adds with eyes so wide she can see the whites all the way around from half way across the room.

“Where did it go?” Lucado asks doubtfully. “If it’s that big how come we didn’t see it?”

Ambrose’s trembling finger lifts to the ceiling and Wynonna instinctively raises her harpoon to point in the direction he’s indicating. She can see one of the vent shafts, a gaping hole in the ceiling between her and the guys that connects the maze of ducts allowing air to flow from the environment chamber all through the ship.

“Holy shit,” she breathes. “It jumped up there?”

“Like it was nothing,” Ambrose says. “That thing is fucking fast.”

Wynonna glances over at Lucado. Her face is pinched a little. Perhaps she’s finally taking this whole issue seriously now.

Lucado waves a hand at them. “Come on; let’s get back to the others. If it’s bigger now there has to be a better way to trap it.”

“You still wanna _keep it_?” Wynonna just about screeches. She gets a dark look in response but that’s not a good enough answer. “This is a terrible idea. Matriarch, I want that on record, acknowledge?”

There’s a moment while Ambrose and Levi stand, the former moves slowly around the outside of the room as if afraid something bad will happen any second now. Levi moves faster, almost racing at them, right beneath the vent.

The shape that explodes from the hole is something unlike anything Wynonna could ever have imagined. Its banana shaped head has no eyes that she can see so she has no idea how it spots Levi, but its long ridged tail spine pierces him right through the chest just under the ribs and curls back up to puncture his lungs. He goes limp instantly and before Wynonna can do more than shout it’s disappeared back up into the shaft.

Some sort of liquid plinks to the floor beneath it.

“ _Noted: First pilot, Wynonna Earp, has registered that capturing the alien creature encountered from Sevastopol Station is a ‘terrible idea’_.”

Perfect timing from Matriarch, as always.

Ambrose screams but before he can do anything stupid (see: stand below that death hole) Wynonna grabs him around the middle and hauls him away through the broken doors. It’s hard to make it back up the corridor with Ambrose wriggling in her grip trying to break free while still maintaining her death grip on the harpoon but she does eventually get him back to the mess hall. She shoves him into a seat and holds him there.

Nicole is still leaning into Waverly’s arms but she seems better. Her eyes crinkle worriedly when she sees them though.

“What happened?” Waverly asks in a way that suggests she’d really rather not hear the answer.

Wynonna grimaces. “The thing got Levi. It’s in the vents.”

Nicole blanches. “It’s loose?”

“Seems to have free run of the place, anyway. The ducts go everywhere.” She turns a glare on Lucado. “Can we kill it _now_?”

Their captain takes a deep breath. “We can try,” she relents. “We’re going to have to corral it to have a chance though. Matriarch, broadcast to whole ship, everyone to gather in the mess hall immediately. No exceptions, Kiersten.”

Wynonna sighs with relief. Ambrose is no longer trying to throw her off and when she looks back down at him he’s just sitting there weeping softly. She lays a hand on his shoulder but it’s an empty gesture and she knows it.

“What weapons do we still have?” she asks quietly as Perry and Willa step into the room. “The cattle prod is in the engine room and the strut is…” She clenches her harpoon tighter, not liking the idea of losing it at all.

“Willa,” Lucado says tiredly. “Head down the corridor and into the kitchen. Be careful of the vent. Collect the strut for us would you?”

Willa gives her a strange look but doesn’t question the instruction. She leaves the pan she was carrying to trap the worm in. It’s not big enough anymore.

“How did it grow so fast?” Wynonna muses. “Is it finished?”

“Growing?” Perry asks. “It got bigger?”

“It’s about ten feet tall, my guy,” Wynonna tells him wryly. “Good luck catching it now.”

“Shit,” he hisses.

The door swishes open and they all tense but it’s just Kiersten and Beth, the last of them. Kiersten looks right furious. “So what, fearless captain?” she demands. “New plan?”

“The creature has grown at an alarming rate,” Lucado says in a tone more befitting a lecture hall, Wynonna thinks, rather than a very poorly secured space ship under attack by a nightmarish monster. “I’m going to try and kill it.”

Kiersten’s eyebrows both lift in genuine shock. “You are? _You’re_ going to try and kill it?” She makes a strange noise in her throat.

“Would you prefer I delegate the task?” Lucado asks her. It actually sounds… teasing. No, that can’t be right.

Everyone in the room is quick to shake their heads. Willa returns then, the long strut tipped back over her shoulder and Wynonna wonders if she would’ve shaken her head. She’s been weird ever since they woke up but she hasn’t been able to put her finger on _how_ exactly.

Lucado glances at her sister and Wynonna turns, worried about why. But it’s not Waverly she’s after. “Haught. I need you get to the control boot in the engine room.” Nicole goes white and Waverly’s hands tighten around her arm. “With the ship on lockdown, that’s the only place that can override the door locks and herd the creature to the place I want.”

“Which is where, ma’am?” Waverly asks tightly.

She takes two steps and pries the extension saw from Kiersten’s unwilling grip. “The middle corridor downstairs can be cut off, correct?”

Nicole nods. “It’s the middle of the ship, yes. The walls were made to turn it into a sort of bunker. You think that’ll trap it?”

Lucado’s mouth twists downwards and Wynonna suspects she’s still hoping to keep it caught somewhere. “I’m not sure, but I’m willing to give it a try. Ambrose, I want a knife in case it gets too close for the saw and…” she pauses, looking at them in turn. “Good luck.”

“Captain,” Wynonna says as she’s turning away and when Lucado gives her an interrogating look she wishes she hadn’t opened her mouth. Her empty hand curls into a fist. “Do you want backup?”

There’s a moment where Wynonna is absolutely sure Lucado is considering just that. But then she shakes her head. “No.” Her grip shifts on the saw. “Stay here.”

Something in Lucado’s tone makes Wynonna hesitate and then the captain is out of the room and she’s lost her chance to press.

“Is this a chain of command thing?” Kiersten asks.

Wynonna shakes her head. “No, with Jonas dead, Beth’s next on that list. If Lucado bites it, that is.” _If_ , she hopes is the right word and _when_ doesn’t become a reality.

They both turn to look at her and honestly Wynonna has never related to Beth more. She looks like she’d prefer to launch herself out of the airlock than be in charge of this mess.

 

* * *

 

 

Waverly wants to pull the shutters down to seal the environment chamber off from the engine room, but if they do that there’s only one exit. And if it becomes necessary to escape she can’t imagine having only _one_ route to flee down is exactly the best option. Still, she can feel shivers run down her spine as she steps past the doorway.

Nicole very pointedly doesn’t glance through it but Waverly can’t seem to help herself. Some sort of morbid fascination takes over and her head just turns of its own volition.

There’s an ugly smear across part of the deck but no body. She freezes with one foot still in the air and squints but yeah, no corpse. Waverly opens her mouth to say something but when she sees Nicole’s face decides it’s not worth it.

She files it away under mysteries that’ll probably never be solved.

“So what are we looking for?” she asks instead, hopping over the ladder to join Nicole within the space.

Nicole moves around a few of the consoles and sections of machinery until she pauses at one. She passes Waverly the antique sword she’d collected from Perry and crouches down. “This one,” she says, voice muffled slightly. “It’s the controls for all the doors on the ships. It’s meant to be used only for lockdowns and making sure certain areas are properly sealed. There’s a panel on the bridge that connects to it so the captain doesn’t have to come down here to do this stuff.”

“But the quarantine has frozen all the bridge controls,” Waverly assumes.

“Right. So I have to bypass the systems from here directly.” Her fingers pry a little panel off the underside of the console and she drops it with a clank. “I just hope Lucado waits for me to get this shit ready. Otherwise…”

“She’s walking into a corridor with a monster and no escape plan.”

Nicole’s face tightens.

 

* * *

 

 

Perry waits for the comms to crackle to life with his hand carefully over the door controls. Ambrose shifts a lot less patiently beside him and from the look on Lucado’s face; she’s not enjoying his shuffling. Probably just reminds her she’s going to fight a monster and maybe die. Perry doesn’t envy her in the least.

“We’re all set down here, captain,” Nicole’s voice says over the speakers. “I can seal doors whenever you’re ready.”

“Do we even know where it is?” Perry mutters. “What if we can’t get it here?”

“Matriarch, movement detection?” Lucado requests.

There’s a moment of silence and then, “ _Unidentified movement detected in the medical bay_.”

“What’s it doing there?” Ambrose asks but Lucado cuts him off.

“Doesn’t matter. Haught, can you start sealing doors and vent shafts to coerce it in my direction?”

Another pause. And when Nicole speaks she sounds reluctant. “I can, captain.”

Lucado nods her head sharply and Perry thinks it’s probably at least half to convince herself this is a good plan that will work. “Do it then.” And she turns to head down the corridor.

She’d already told Perry to seal the door when she gets through but he hesitates. “Ma’am?” he says. She turns just slightly to look at him. “Good luck.” Her mouth twists but she nods again.

He seals the door with a loud whump. It feels awfully final.

Even though he can’t see Lucado through the door he sort of just stares at it until Ambrose pulls him away.

“Nicole?” he asks. “Any chance you can seal off the vents around the mess?” That should help keep them safe, he thinks.

“I can,” she says after a moment. “But sealing vents prevents the ship from regulating its environment. Could get cold.”

“I’d rather be cold than dead,” he tells her. And he supposes freezing to death quietly in an unregulated room is better than the trauma of being eaten or exploded or whatever this thing does. He hears a grinding in the wall beside him and looks up, panic flaring for a second, but then he can see the shutters of the vent swinging down until they click closed.

“I’m leaving two in the room adjacent the mess half open,” Nicole’s voice says as he and Ambrose step back into the common area. “That should help keep the area warm but still puts two walls between you and it should it drop down there. If it can. I’ll try and seal some extra vents off so it can’t get into them from anywhere but down here.”

“Thanks, Nicole,” Wynonna says from where she’s staring at a console perched on the table.

“Where did you get that?” Ambrose asks, shuffling around to see what she’s looking at.

“Willa fetched it from the bridge,” Wynonna says, thumbing across the screen. “I’m looking for the feed that’ll track Lucado.”

Kiersten is standing behind Wynonna, peering at the screen so Ambrose and Perry join them. He’s not sure where Willa is but Beth is sitting on one of the chairs in the lower half of the room with her arms around her knees. He spares her a glance but there’s not much he can do at the moment. Not if Nicole is still trying to herd the monster away from the medical bays.

Wynonna makes a pleased sound and he focuses his attention back on the screen. Lucado is inching along the corridor with her saw held out in front of her carefully, the hooked blade pointing away from her. He can see she got a knife from the kitchens too, it’s tucked into the waistband of her pants though he thinks if it gets close enough that she can use it she’s probably in trouble.

He supposes, anyway, he still hasn’t seen this thing since it got bigger.

“Where is it?” Kiersten asks.

“Nicole?” Perry raises his voice. “Do you know where it is?”

Her voice comes over strained this time. “Matriarch is tracking it, seems to be following the path we want for the moment. I’ve just locked down the medical bay. It’s in the hall on the way up to Lucado.”

On the screen, Lucado’s stopped walking. “Why isn’t she moving?” Ambrose asks; fingers over his mouth.

Wynonna points to something on the screen. “That’s the safety lock Nicole mentioned before. A wall can come up in the corridor to seal this off like a bunker.”

“She’ll be trapped there with it?” Kiersten asks.

Perry shakes his head. “I think she probably intends to lock that side,” he says, pointing to the other end of the corridor. “Then Lucado has a chance to kill it and if she can’t…”

“She can back out this side and Nicole can lock the other door and trap it inside,” Wynonna finishes. “But that’s only if it goes according to plan.”

Something dark shifts on the screen at the other end of the corridor to Lucado and Perry’s eyes widen sharply. The corridors are about eight feet tall, just enough for some of the equipment to be rolled down them, and the creature is hunched over, filling almost all of the space. When it sees Lucado, though, it drops to all fours, prowling towards her slowly. Its head is a strange heavy shape and he wonders briefly how it supports the weight. But then it breaks into a lope.

“Any time now, Haught,” Lucado’s voice echoes through the comms.

The door behind Lucado sweeps upwards and clanks into place. Nicole swears and they can all hear it as she tries to remove the wall because as it is, Lucado is backed up against it staring down a nine foot horror from Perry’s worst nightmares.

Behind the monster – which is picking up speed – the other door whooshes up.

“Nicole, lower the door,” Wynonna says tensely.

“I’m trying! The system is going haywire. Some of the vents are opening again. I don’t know what’s happening.”

Lucado swings her saw at the creature as it bears down on her. Instead of slowing it climbs up the wall and lopes along the ceiling as if gravity means nothing to it. It looks like Lucado manages to hook the end of the saw into one of the creature’s legs. At least, something liquid spurts out and he assumes it’s blood.

But then it splashes across Lucado’s face and all they can hear on the comms is her screaming. On the screen, she drops her saw and lifts her hands to her face, collapsing to the floor as the monster falls from the ceiling on top of her.

Her hands fall away and Perry’s pretty sure she’s missing fingers. Lucado’s heels drum against the floor twice, three times, and then she’s still. Her face has been… _melted_ somehow, sagging inwards and crumbling as they watch.

“The face-crab had acid for blood,” Perry says softly as the creature hooks its tail through Lucado’s body and leaps into a vent – must be one of the ones Nicole had said were reopening. “Apparently it does too.”

“How do you fight something with _acid_ for blood?” Wynonna whispers.

The door to the bridge swishes open and they all jump about a foot in the air as Willa steps through. She passes a glass of water to Beth before coming to join them.

“I take it that didn’t go well,” she says tonelessly. “Pity.”

“A _pity_?” Kiersten is very shrill. “Her face _melted_.”

“It can be wounded though,” Wynonna points out. “It might be acid, but it does _bleed_. Nicole, Waverly, get back up here. There has to be a better way to do this.”

“What are you thinking, Wynonna?” Waverly asks.

“I’m thinking we get into the armoury.” She looks over at Beth and Perry follows her gaze. Beth nods jerkily. “We have a flamethrower.”

 

* * *

 

 

Wynonna follows Beth and Willa back into the bridge. With Lucado dead, Beth is the ranking officer so she can lift the lockdown on the ship and get them into the armoury. While Beth boots up the captain’s systems on the bridge, Wynonna heads into the side room carrying a sack she’d taken from the kitchens.

It’s not a big space; it’s the hatch down to the _Icarus_ , their detachable shuttle. Even though it’s still locked for the moment, she can leave her bag in the first chamber. The satchel contains a few months of those tubes Waverly hates so much, the nutrient paste garbage. If any of them do manage to escape on the _Icarus_ they’ll need some food to sustain them. She also unlocks the panel on the wall to make sure the hypersleep chambers in the pod are still functioning.

Nicole had mentioned that there seemed to be some hinky code in the med bay chambers and there was no way Wynonna had any intention of being woken from sleep only to starve to death in the stupid shuttle. If she gets off the _Epimetheus_ having survived nightmare alien monster, she will _not_ die from lack of food. No way. What a shitty way to go. She’d rather the creature got her.

She waits for Beth to lift the quarantine lock so she can check the systems but it never happens.

Wynonna blinks at the panel with its red border and LOCKED printed across the screen.

It shouldn’t take this long. She turns towards the door and lifts her harpoon back to her shoulder. Probably now isn’t the time to rediscover religion but she prays whatever’s outside it isn’t that creature.

There’s a loud thump and she’s pretty sure that’s a strangled cry of some kind so Wynonna barrels through back into the bridge.

Willa has Beth bent backwards over a console, hands around her throat, thumbs pressing so hard into her windpipe Wynonna can see it from across the room.

“Willa, stop!” she shouts. Willa barely spares her a glance. “Willa! Let her go!”

Beth’s hands scrabble at Willa’s wrists, her feet kicking as she tries to find leverage but she’s not having much luck. Wynonna shifts her grip on the harpoon and fixes Willa at the end of her sights.

“Willa,” she calls. “I mean it. Let her go.”

“You won’t shoot me. I’m your –”

There’s a solid _whunk_ as the heavy bolt slams through Willa’s midsection, prongs snapping open as they would to anchor someone on a spacewalk. Willa stumbles back a step but she doesn’t fall and Wynonna frowns.

There’s no blood.

“What is this?” Wynonna demands, voice shaky.

Willa smiles, a milky substance leaking from the corner of her mouth. At last she sinks to her knees, body bending unnaturally. The harpoon must have severed her spine.

“You’re an android,” Wynonna realises, stepping closer. “What happened to my sister?”

The robot-Willa’s voice is distorted when it speaks. “I have your sister’s memories,” it gurgles. “Sometimes I even catch myself acting out one of her quirky behaviours.” There’s a strange digital sound before she continues. “… programming should override it but sometimes it lapses. For all intents and purposes, I am your sister. Only without the pesky interference of sentiment.”

“What happened to the real Willa? Are you the one who…”

The robot grins, lopsided and slack. “The technology of memory transfer is imperfect. I am the only Willa now.”

The doors to the bridge whoosh open and when Wynonna risks a glance up she sees Waverly standing there with Kiersten and Nicole. Their mouths all drop.

“You,” Nicole says, recovering first. “You were the one sabotaging all the systems. Why?”

More of the white liquid bubbles from her lips. “My supervisor – Willa’s supervisor – Robert, he found something in a transmission. A ship in this quadrant disappeared not all that long ago, a year or two at most. He wanted to find the creature that did it.”

Kiersten strides across the room and grabs Willa’s collar, twisting her so violently the machinery now visible in the space where the harpoon shot through sparks and fails. “They _knew_ about the creature? And they sent us anyway?”

“All discoveries require sacrifice,” she mutters, voice almost too distorted to understand. “No reward without risk.”

“You put our lives…” Kiersten shoves her away and with a last snap the top half of the android lolls apart from the lower.

Robot Willa isn’t finished yet, though. “Special order…” static hisses through her no longer functioning mouth piece. “Nine-three-seven. Preservation at all costs… crew expendable… Terminate sequence…”

There’s another flash of light within the android and then it moves no more.

“Our sister was a robot,” Waverly breathes.

“I think your sister was _replaced_ with a robot, actually, Waves,” Nicole corrects her. “Same thing though. That explains why we were woken early, why there was no trace of tampering. She was co-opting the systems.”

Wynonna’s eyebrows lift. “Is she why the doors malfunctioned earlier?”

Nicole’s mouth opens and then closes quickly. “Maybe. If she had access to the systems from here… I mean I don’t know what androids can do but I guess if she could override the lockdown she could’ve…”

“We’ll probably never know now anyway,” Wynonna says.

Waverly tilts her head, frowning. “What made you harpoon her anyway? I didn’t realise she wasn’t Willa…”

She trails off as Wynonna curses and spins. It’s awful but in the revelation of finding her sister had been murdered and replaced with a psycho robot she’d forgotten all about Beth. Her harpoon clatters to the deck as she reaches her.

Beth isn’t moving but Wynonna pushes that aside and checks for vitals. There’s no pulse at her neck but she doesn’t have an alien spine through her so compressions should work, right? Surely.

Even as she begins Waverly steps up beside her. “Stop, Wy. Her windpipe has been crushed, look.” And yeah, she sees the way Beth’s throat is a little concave and sure, it’s not the most normal but…

She exhales, turning to let Waverly hug her tightly. “I wish people would stop dying,” she says, tears landing on Waverly’s shoulder.

“Me too,” she agrees. “And I know it won’t make you feel any better, but you’re the ranking officer now. You can lift the quarantine.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Okay,” Wynonna says once they’re all back together in the mess hall. “Here’s how this is gonna go. Waverly and Nicole, get down to the armoury. I don’t know what else we have but Beth’s manifest had a flamethrower listed and I want it. Ambrose, go with Perry down to the medical bay. Bring back any first aid supplies we have in case we need them. Kiersten, you and I are raiding the pantry. This mess hall is going to be the most defensible place until we can eject it through the airlock.”

“Which airlock, Wynonna?” Nicole asks. “Some would be more feasible than others.”

“Thoughts?”

Nicole nods. “Yeah. If we can get it into the cargo bay we can dump the whole load from here.”

Kiersten shuffles her feet and folds her arms. “All the cargo? What about food? What about the people you’re delivering it to?”

Waverly’s mouth twists down. “I think they’ll understand that it was life or death.” At least, Waverly’s certain she’d rather dump the lot than risk dying. Maybe Kiersten disagrees but then she’s welcome to be the one locking the hold.

“And if we get it into the hold,” Wynonna continues. “I don’t want it to have anything to hold onto when we eject.” They all nod because, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It’s proven to be a slippery thing so far. “Cool. Off we go. Stick together and don’t die.”

Nicole hefts the sword with one hand and slides the other into Waverly’s as they head outside and slink down the corridor towards the armoury.  Waverly can feel Nicole’s heartbeat in her wrist pounding just as fast as her own. She wishes she had a weapon in hand too.

She just about walks into Nicole when she stops abruptly.

“What–?” she begins but stops when she steps up beside her. There’s a little hole etched into the floor spattered with blood and a greyish ichor Waverly doesn’t want to think about.

This is where Lucado died.

“Come on,” Nicole whispers, edging around the hole pressing as close to the wall as she can. Waverly follows her lead but then spots the saw. Her eyes flick up to the still open vent. “Waverly, no!” She ignores it, darting forward to grab the handle.

There’s a sort of slime along the blade and it’s dull now, pitted from the acid. It’s better than nothing. She shifts her grip on the handle and nods for Nicole to continue.

“That was risky.”

“I want to be able to defend myself,” she says. “And I can’t ask you to protect us both from that thing.”

She can tell from the set of Nicole’s shoulders that she’s unhappy so Waverly winds their hands together again for just long enough to give it a squeeze. Much as she might like to hold her hand the entire way, they can’t risk it.

They take their time getting to the armoury; every time either of them hears something they freeze in place and wait which Waverly thinks is incredibly stupid because stationary targets are easy to find and kill than moving ones, but okay. When they do eventually reach the armoury the door has malfunctioned. Because of _course_ it has, nothing has gone their way so far today why would this.

Nicole passes her the sword and crouches, grumbling about how the ship is falling apart faster than she can put it back together. She’s none to gentle in ripping the panel open and ducking inside.

“I can’t close the door or it will seal permanently,” Nicole tells her. “Whatever Willa was doing to the ship did the trick. Half the systems are down or broken or… _god!_ ” She throws a hand across Waverly’s chest and pushes them both back against the wall. In the corridor outside a shadow moves.

Waverly’s eyes are wide and if she thought her heart was going fast before now it’s for sure trying to put her into cardiac arrest. She scans the room quickly and then realises her shoulders are pressed against a locker.

“Get in,” she hisses to Nicole, throwing the doors open and shoving her inside. Waverly doesn’t want to try and cram in there too, she’s not sure the door would close again, but she has no time to dive across the room and hide under one of the benches so she just wriggles in with her and yanks the door closed.

It clicks shut mere moments before something dark bulges in the doorway. The sword hilt is digging into her lower back but Waverly doesn’t dare move in case it makes a noise. As it is, she’s not sure she’s breathing. Nicole’s hand clamps down on hers and holds so tight she’s surprised the bones don’t break.

The creature has to duck real low to get into the room and it prowls right past their locker, toe claws making a soft click with every step. Its head bows, and Waverly can see through the slats the way the domed top turns to ridges like a narrow crest. Its dark body glistens as if wet, but up close it seems rigid like a carapace or insectoid exoskeleton. The creature makes a hissing sound, saliva (or what she assumes is saliva, that could be acid too for all she knows), leaks from its mouth around its little pointed teeth and pitter-patters to the floor like rain.

It stalks through the armoury – which isn’t a big room, but it looks smaller for the size of the monster hunched within it – and its movements are the kind of graceful that belies its size and ferocity. It knocks nothing over as it passes, whip-like tail flicking behind it.

Nicole exhales softly and the creature’s head jerks around. It slinks over, tilting this way and that as it inspects the locker. Waverly realises that it’s trying to work out what the locker is and how it made sound with such shock she nearly falls right out into its claws.

When it opens its mouth another oblong-ish shape extends out. To her utmost horror, the shape looks like the worm that exploded from Tucker’s ribs; it’s a second mouth with little chomping teeth. The way it moves makes her think perhaps this second eel-like pharyngeal jaw is tasting the air around it, perhaps to locate prey.

That chills her to her toes.

Her grip tightens on Nicole’s hand and although there are several things she would _like_ to say in the face of certain imminent death she can’t even open her mouth. The look in Nicole’s eyes says she knows though.

The creature lifts its claws, perhaps to tear at the locker, but before it can there’s an obnoxious crash from outside. It sounds distinctly like shattering glass.

So fast Waverly isn’t sure she really sees it move, the thing is turning away from their locker. It makes a strange high pitched noise like a screech and then charges out of the armoury, its tail swishes, the last part to disappear into the corridor.

The breath that escapes Waverly then is pure relief. She sags forward into Nicole and just about starts crying actually. Nicole kisses her carefully before pushing the locker door open and peering past the entrance into the hall. She shakes her head when she doesn’t see it and another wave of relief washes through her.

“That was way too damn close,” Nicole says as she begins to search the armoury for their flamethrower.

Waverly hums agreement and helps shuffle – quietly – through all the junk they have in here. None of it should be in the armoury. It’s a lot of empty supply crates, a few spare medical kits, extra flashlights, batteries. They have no weapons.

Nicole finds the flamethrower in a large black crate beneath a workbench. Incidentally the one Waverly had considered diving for when the monster appeared. She tests the fluid pack and is rewarded by the little light flickering to life.

“Oh… dibs,” Waverly breathes. Nicole just laughs and assists her in settling the petrol pack on her shoulders. “Yes very good. I hope this thing is afraid of burning.”

“God me too.” Nicole scoops the saw up so she’s holding it in one hand and the sword in the other. “Let’s get back to Wynonna.”

 

* * *

 

 

Ambrose’s hands flutter around the door but it’s entirely too late for that, Perry rips the strut back out and uses the end to push free the rest of the glass between them and the medical bay. The doors had been locked and neither of them knew how to open it. It may not be ideal, but at least they can get the supplies.

He steps through the new entrance, boots crunching on the glass.

“You’re making too much noise,” Ambrose hisses. “What if it hears us?”

“If we spend too long dithering,” Perry tells him, walking over to the bay where he’d left Tucker’s body. “It could just as likely stumble into us accidentally. There’s risk either way. Now hurry up, the medical kits are in that cupboard.”

Ambrose scurries through to the cabinet he points to being much more careful not to stand on the glass than Perry thinks he needs to be. “What are you getting?”

“I’m getting one of the internal cameras,” he says. “We can leave it in the corridor and see what’s coming near the mess hall.” He figures it’s better to see the monster coming than be surprised.

When the door slides open he stops dead in his tracks. The entire bay is covered in some sort of slime. As he lifts his boot to go in and have a closer look he meets resistance. Looking down shows him the mucus is on the floor too, sticking his shoes to the ground and making it hard to lift them.

He wrenches his foot free with a disgusting squelching sound. Every step after that one squishes too, it’s awful. Tucker’s body isn’t where he left it on the gurney; it appears to be glued to the wall by the mucus. The closer he looks, the more he wishes he hadn’t stepped in here. There is a network of mucus strands hanging from the ceiling and everything is slick and damp and tacky. There are lumps of something on the walls – which have been coated so thickly in the mucus they appear ridged – so he steps closer to one, wondering what they are. He only recognises Lucado because of the collapsed shape to her skull, evidence of the acid. He’s pretty sure the body supported just beside her is maybe Levi but his head is wrapped completely in whatever this gunk is. The last misshapen growth on the walls must be Jonas but the only thing visible above the greenish ick is his face and there’s not much of it left.

Perry doubles over and vomits.

Ambrose must hear the noise and come over to see if he’s alright because the next thing he knows there’s a hand on his back. “What…” he begins but Perry shoves him backwards.

“No,” he snaps, swallowing around the lump that makes him want to throw up some more. “Don’t look.” He pushes Ambrose back into the other room, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll get it, find the kits.”

Ambrose’s expression is pure concern but he nods and hurries off to do as instructed. Perry takes a deep breath and steels himself and turns back into the room. If he ignores the knowledge that those shapes were once crew members it’s not so bad. Though the way his boots stick to the floor every time he puts them down is more than a little inconvenient. His stomach churns as one of the slimy tendrils brushes his shoulder.

He finds the camera in a draw he has to pull open so hard he nearly wrenches it free of its sliders. The green ick drips from the edges, torn now, but before had sealed it shut quite effectively. Curiosity flickers in the back of his mind as he wonders vaguely what it is and what function it serves. But he shakes himself. Thinking about that will only get them both killed.

He snatches the camera box up and turns.

The monster is in the doorway between him and the exit. It makes a hissing sound like an angry crocodile and Perry does the only thing he can think of.

He throws the box.

The creature ducks and the box sails over its now lowered head. “Ambrose get that stuff to the bridge right now. Run! Don’t look back!”

Perry can see Ambrose just returning with the medical kits. His eyes widen comically when he sees the creature and for a second Perry thinks the monster will turn on Ambrose instead. So he whistles shrilly to regain its attention. It hisses furiously again.

“Run!” Perry screams as the monster advances.

He closes his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

Ambrose skids through the mess door and then his legs give way sending him sprawling to the deck. He waves a hand at the door but Wynonna knows what’s wrong.

“It got Perry?” she asks, already full knowing the answer. He just jerks his head in what she assumes is an attempt at nodding. She would very much like to sit down and cry now, actually. Instead she runs a hand through her hair.

Waverly and Nicole arrive then, her sister has the flamethrower strapped to her back. “What happened?” Nicole asks. “We heard something break.”

“Perry broke the glass getting into the medical bay,” Ambrose groans. “Then the thing got him.”

“It nearly got us,” Waverly tells her softly. “I think… it’s learning.”

Wynonna bobs her head. Just more bad news, no worries. “Okay, so we’ll probably only get one shot at launching it through the cargo hold then.”

“You still want to eject all the cargo?” Kiersten asks flatly. Wynonna gets the distinct impression she just likes questioning people.

“Unless you have a better idea,” she sighs. “Then yes.”

Surprising her completely, Kiersten nods. “Alright then. What’s the plan?”

And okay, so Wynonna doesn’t have one of those just yet. The extent of her thoughts had been: step one, get the alien into the cargo hold; step two, launch it into the nearest sun.

“Matriarch,” she says. “Locate movement on the ship outside the mess.”

“ _Movement on deck two outside the medical bay_.”

She blinks. Why hasn’t it moved on? Doesn’t matter really, she supposes. “Nicole, you have the controls, block off a nice path from the medical centre to the cargo hold.”

“How are you going to get it in there, though?” Waverly asks. “It could just as easily stay right where it is.”

“We’ll need bait,” Wynonna decides grimly. She opens her mouth to volunteer herself but Ambrose beats her to it.

“I’ll go,” he says softly. His eyes are sad when he lifts them to meet her gaze. “That thing got Levi. If it’s the last thing I do… I’ll kill it.”

She claps a hand to his shoulder and means to ask if he’s sure, but tears leak silently from the corners of his eyes so she keeps her mouth shut. “Alright,” she says instead.

“There’s a problem,” Nicole pipes up because _of course_ there is. Wynonna turns to look at her. “There’s only one viable route into the cargo hold from where it is. Some of the vents that malfunctioned before aren’t responding so I’m not risking it. But the only door it can go through into the hold itself is locked open for some reason.” She pauses to fix Wynonna with a grim look. “It’ll have to be closed manually.”

Well. Fuck.

“Baby girl,” Wynonna says. “You stay here with Nicole. If that thing somehow gets past us, you’ve got the firepower. Use it. Kiersten, you’re with me. Grab a weapon and let’s kill this thing.”

Kiersten pulls a face but she also grabs the sword and sets her shoulders. “Let’s,” she agrees.

Wynonna takes a deep breath and follows her out.

They walk in complete silence for a while but Wynonna doesn’t really know what to say to her. She’s glad the corridors are empty though.

“So what kind of diplomat are you anyway?” Wynonna eventually asks. “It’s been bothering me.”

Kiersten shoots her a strange look but honestly Wynonna just hopes she plays along. It’s easier to think about mundane things than how gruesomely people have been dying today.

“The colony has been having some sort of unrest,” she says. “Something about being unhappy with how Weyland-Yutani is treating them. I was sent to ease tensions and work on a resolution.”

Wynonna bites off a laugh. “No offense, but I’m kinda mad at Weyland-Yutani and how they’re treating me too. Dunno if you’ve noticed but my family’s been having a shit day.”

Kiersten glances at her again, sad this time. “The robot was your sister?”

Her mouth turns down. “From what she said, my sister’s dead. That thing was just pretending.”

“And Waverly?”

“Younger sister. It was weird all being assigned to the same ship actually. Normally it’s just me and Waverly.”

“What about the pretty engineer?” Kiersten asks with an amused expression.

Wynonna doesn’t bother to stop the laugh that time. “Yeah. We met Nicole on a station a few years back. We were between voyages, waiting for our next ship to arrive and take us back to Earth. They hit it off really well. When the station was designated for closure… something about rerouting trade paths, she applied for a transfer. This is the first time we’ve been on the same boat though.”

“Lucky.”

“I sure hope that was sarcasm.”

“Oh absolutely.”

“Good. Because it’s been a nightmare trying to keep the whole family alive.”

This time when Kiersten looks at her she knows it’s more pity than sorrow. Whatever. If the only two people who make it off the ship alive are Waverly and Nicole, well… Wynonna thinks she can live with that.

They pause at a cross intersection of corridors. To their right is a sealed door and on the other side of it they can see another hallway. That one and theirs are parallel, connected by this access door. Wynonna presses her face against the security glass until she spots the door to the hangar.

“There,” she points to it so Kiersten knows what she’s looking at. “The little panel on the far side? That’s the lock. We need to throw that switch when the creature goes through that door and it’ll seal the hold.”

Kiersten nods, her mouth set into a firm line. She hefts the sword.

“Whenever you’re ready, Nic,” Wynonna calls.

“Ambrose is on his way. You should see him in a moment,” Nicole replies.

And sure enough, when Wynonna squishes her face to the glass again, she can see Ambrose step out of another doorway a little further along the monster’s path. He sees them and waves them back. The oblige him. Wynonna hates this, now she can’t see what’s going on.

“What’s the play-by-play, Haught?” she asks.

“The alien seems to have located Ambrose,” she says. “It’s going slowly though.”

“It could know this is a trap,” Waverly puts in.

Wynonna and Kiersten are left standing there for another few minutes, eyes glued to the glass panel. Then, dully, she hears a horrible scream. Ambrose runs past their door and into the hangar.

A shadow races past after him and she dives to the floor, tugging Kiersten with her. If that thing sees them, there’s no telling if it’ll go after Ambrose or try and get to them. Not a risk she wants to take.

“Well that’s horrifying,” she says quietly. “Nicole?”

“It’s in the hangar. Go. Hurry.”

The door whooshes open in front of them and they both scramble through. It comes down behind them and Wynonna’s heartrate picks up alarmingly. Her hands are trembling so badly when she throws herself across the corridor at the panel that she’s actually not sure she’ll be able to activate the switch.

“It’s coming back!” Kiersten’s voice is terrified no two ways about it.

“Working on it,” Wynonna says shrilly.

“Wynonna!”

The panel flips open and she inputs the security code. “Come on,” she mutters. “Come on, come on, come on.”

“ _Wynonna_!”

She locates the door lock and throws it, spinning just in time to see the monster loom through the doorway. It throws a clawed hand out so quickly that Kiersten doesn’t even get to swing her sword before it’s hooked into her shoulder, dragging her away.

Kiersten screams and Wynonna’s blood runs cold.

The door creaks and snaps closed, cutting clean through Kiersten’s waist.

Wynonna collapses to her knees, shaking.

There’s a single loud _thud_ as the monster attempts to bust down the door and get to her (well she assumes anyway). It must remember Ambrose then because it doesn’t keep trying. There are, however, no tell-tale sounds to indicate the cargo hold doors have been opened.

Slowly and with a bit of a struggle, Wynonna pries herself to her feet. There’s a window of safety glass in this door too and she peers through it and the greenish slime splattered on the other side. Nothing has moved.

“Nicole?” she calls.

No answer.

“ _Nicole!_ ”

Fear and adrenaline lend her strength and she’s staggering into a full tilt back down the corridor towards the mess hall. A door to her right whooshes open without warning.

“We’re alright, Wynonna,” Waverly’s voice says. “Nicole wants you to take that door.”

She does so and totters on trembling legs all the way back to the bridge. She throws the door shut behind her for all the good it’ll do.

“What happened?” she gasps, slumping down into her seat.

Nicole’s head pops up from behind a console. “I think… when Tucker docked us with Sevastopol manually he overrode something. The doors are locked shut. I thought it was weird when they closed before the cargo was confirmed but this is… yeah. Definitely broken. I can’t do anything without actually going down into the hold and fixing it at the source.”

“Which you are absolutely not going to do,” Wynonna tells her at the same time Waverly says, “You will certainly not!”

Nicole smiles at them. “Aw, you care.”

Wynonna rolls her eyes. “Do we have other options?”

Waverly shrugs. “Nicole suggested we find a port, but with that thing in the hold it’s too dangerous. We’d unleash it on a settlement.”

“And there’s still the issue of having to get _into_ the lock to fix the doors,” Nicole says. “No safer at a port than in space.”

“We can go back to your original plan now though,” Waverly says, running a hand through Nicole’s hair. “No quarantine locks, not too many people. The _Icarus_ can support five lives.”

“There’s food in the entrance hatch too,” Wynonna adds. “I can program a destination here and we’ll be on our merry way.”

“And what happens when the _Epimetheus_ arrives at her destination?” Nicole asks. “They’ll open it up and the creature will get them.”

Wynonna thinks about that a moment. Even if she removes the autopilot and leaves the ship drifting there’s no telling who might stumble upon it. This is a common trade route for Weyland-Yutani in the quadrant.

They do have to kill it to prevent it from hurting anyone else. But how the hell can they do that?

It hits her like a bolt of lightning.

“I’m going to crash the ship,” she tells them. “Baby girl, get on the charts and find me a nice abandoned planet or large asteroid we can make a path with.”

“Matriarch won’t let you program in a route that puts us on a collision course,” Nicole says. “There are systems in place for it.”

Wynonna eyes her carefully. “If the systems were damaged…” she begins. “Say, with a big metal stick, would Matriarch allow it then?”

Nicole shrugs. “I don’t know. You’d have to do extensive damage to the engine room and then we might not be able to launch _Icarus_.”

“You could just switch off Matriarch’s mainframe,” Waverly suggests and they both look at her. She smiles sheepishly. “That’s what those controls are for.” She points to the trapezoidal shape panel in the floor under the captain’s seat.

“What happens if we do that?” Wynonna asks. Because nothing else today has been easy so why would this?

“You have to do it manually,” Waverly says, standing to push the chair out of the way. “And then I’m pretty sure you can’t automate anything else.”

“So I have to plot the crash course and then deactivate her?” Wynonna checks.

“Well yes. Or, I could plot the course and when I submit it, you throw the switch. We’d only have a short window. And _Icarus_ will have to be fully prepped first, too.”

Wynonna thinks about that, bobbing her head back and forth. Are there risks? Yes. But there are greater risks if they stay.

A loud clanging sound below decides her.

“Right. Nicole, get as many supplies into the _Icarus_ as you can manage and program in a return journey to Earth. I never want to see space again. Waverly, get me the best collision the galaxy has ever seen.”

Nicole stands to do that but pauses. “What about Calamity Jane?”

“Nic, no offense, but no cat is worth out lives,” Wynonna tells her. “If she’s not on the _Icarus_ by the time this horrible, bad sequence of events starts, I’m afraid she’s gonna have to take her chances with the alien.”

She gets a heated frown but at least no more arguing.

The banging in the hold continues the whole time she’s wrestling with the panel. When it finally tugs free she realises her mistake. Sure, this will shut down Matriarch, but it will also shut down _all_ pre-programmed systems. Which, duh, means she’ll have to put the ship on its new trajectory manually and then get to the _Icarus_ before it launches. It’ll be tight, but she’s pretty sure it’s doable.

“Waves,” she says gently. “Don’t hit go on that course just yet. This overrides preprogramed systems. I’ll do it myself.”

Waverly’s eyes go wide. “You are not piloting this into an asteroid,” she says it so firmly, brooking no nonsense.

“No. But I am going to submit it after Matriarch is shut down.”

Waverly thinks about this a minute and then nods sharply. “I’ll make sure you’re covered.”

“No, you get on the shuttle. If only two of us survive that’s still better than none.”

One of Waverly’s hands curls into a fist on the console. She looks like she wants to argue but then tilts her head to one side. Wynonna frowns and wonders what she’s listening to.

For the nth time that day, her blood runs cold. The banging has stopped.

“It’s loose,” she breathes. “How are we going, baby girl?”

Waverly keys a few more things and then looks up and nods. “We’re set.” She indicates a blue flashing button on the console. “This is the one you press to make it go.”

“Get to the shuttle and make sure Nicole’s got the course set.”

Her sister hesitates briefly before going to do exactly that.

Wynonna pulls the first of two handles up out of the recessed panel. A glass tube emerges filled with some sort of orange liquid. She follows the instructions on the handle and rotates it ninety degrees clockwise. Something within snaps sharply and she presses it back down.

“ _You have initiated full mainframe shutdown_ ,” Matriarch announces. “ _My systems will go offline and automation of processes will cease. Manual functions only will be available._ ”

“Yes, yes,” she grumbles, pulling at the other one. “I know, we read the fine print.”

The second tube slides into its place.

“ _Mainframe shutdown commencing_.”

Wynonna lurches upright as all the lights flick off. The secondary power source down in the engines takes a second to kick in and she sighs with relief when the course Waverly plotted is still blinking on the console. She smacks her palm against the blue button and the ship rocks as it processes the redirection.

She turns, ready to sprint for the _Icarus_ but – and isn’t it _just_ her luck – the monster stands by the other door. The orange shutdown lights flicker on and off and somehow that makes it seem even more ominous; wreathed in shadows for a second and then lit harshly from below the next. It’s not between her and the _Icarus_ but it’s an awful lot closer to her than she is to the shuttle and she’s seen how fast it can move. Standing still might not save her life but Waverly and Nicole can get to safety.

“Keep looking at me,” she whispers. She hadn’t seen eyes and the thought flashes through her mind quickly that it might not even have any. “Keep looking at me you fucking monster.”

She shifts just a little and her hand brushes against the saw Waverly had left behind. Her fingers close carefully around the handle.

Then she spots movement. Waverly stands in the doorway to the shuttle. Her eyes land first on Wynonna and then on the creature.

It turns and Wynonna lurches forward, bringing the saw down hard on its shoulder.

The creature hisses and some of the weird greenish blood spurts out to splash against Wynonna’s arm. She screams. The monster recovers first, rounding on her and she backs up into another console.

“Get the hell away from her, asshole.”

A flash of brilliance fills Wynonna’s eyes and she averts her gaze. The monster squeals and backs off. Something grabs at her good arm and drags her away.

When she looks up, Nicole is hauling her to the shuttle and Waverly is throwing fire at the creature. It seems more surprised than hurt by the flames but Wynonna isn’t going to complain. She wants to complain a little when Nicole tosses her unceremoniously into the shuttle and calls for Waverly.

Wynonna’s head spins and she considers it a personal victory that she doesn’t hurl.

The outer doors seal with a soft whisper that’s followed by a much louder banging as the creature hurls itself against the steel. Waverly collapses beside her with a medical kit as Nicole slams the inner doors shut and sits at the control panel.

“You’re lucky it didn’t hit anything super important with that acid,” Waverly tells her softly. “You might even get to keep the arm.”

“Please, god be joking,” Wynonna gasps.

“You’ll be fine,” Waverly laughs. She douses Wynonna’s arm in something that smells awful and makes her head reel again. Then she’s being bandaged and told to sit on the hypersleep pod.

The ship lurches and the _Icarus_ launches away from the _Epimetheus_ leaving the monster trapped on a ship doomed for a fiery explosion.

Waverly presses a kiss to Wynonna’s crown. “You’re an idiot, but you’re a brave idiot.”

She scoffs, jerking at her arm and the sting is enough to make her regret it. “You’re the idiot with the flamethrower.”

“No piece of garbage insect kills my sister,” Waverly tells her, smoothing a hand over her hair.

“The hypersleep chambers are ready,” Nicole murmurs. “We’ll reach Earth in about two and a half years. The systems are all working properly so it’ll be a good nap.”

Wynonna smiles at her wanly.

Calamity Jane leaps up to sit on her lap and she strokes at the cat’s soft fur. She doesn’t know why she’s not more surprised that the cat made it.

“Fucking finally,” she says. “I’m so tired.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you and merry christmas
> 
> *Kiersten is the girl on the bus who dies in the very first episode. poor girl. we never even got to know her.


End file.
